Sheet Set Manager – Model Views on Sheets
The sheet set manager has a nice feature that creates viewports on your sheets from model views. In this post I’ll show you how to use this feature in your sheet sets through a simple example. The first thing you’ll need is a master drawing that contains your model objects and views.
Next you’ll need a sheet set. In this case, starting with an empty sheet set is useful. Use the Existing drawings method of sheet set creation and in the wizard where you are prompted to Choose Layouts, leave it blank. Once created, to create new sheets, in the Sheet Set Manager, on the Sheet List tab, right-click on your sheet set  and click New Sheet. Once you’ve created your sheet you can import a view from your master drawing onto it.
To import the views from the master drawing, on the Model Views tab, add a new location that points to the folder that contains your master drawing. Then, expand the master drawing and drag the desired view onto your sheet. Right-click to change the scale of the view. A final click will place the view down on the sheet. The master drawing will be xrefed into the sheet and a viewport will be created that matches the view at your selected scale.
Click to View the Animated GIF
Furthermore, if you save a layer snapshot with your view the on/off and freeze/thaw settings of your model view will be carried over to your sheet.
Something to watch out for is the VISRETAIN system variable in your sheet drawings. If it’s set to 0, after you close and reopen the sheet drawing or reload the xref, all the layer settings will revert to the xref’s layer property settings.
Furthermore, the creation method is fancy but the resulting objects aren’t. If you update a view in the master drawing, it will not dynamically update the sheet. You’d have to go into the sheet, delete the xref and viewport and re-import the view to see the changes.
