[Troy DeGroot]

This is a great tip David. Another option would be to select all the markups in the Markup List and delete them, however, your method of flattening would allow others to see the comments that were made so they’re not lost.

Off the top of my head, a few other prep ideas would be:

• Calibrate (of course)
• make sure you have the correct Profile, Tools and custom columns set.
• If using Quantity Link, make sure the connection is made and you’re using the correctly mapped custom tools.

I’m interested to see what ideas others bring to the table.

[Doug McLean]

One thing I also do is add a note using the Headers and Footer’s option that tells me what drawing package its from.
Nothing crazy, just something like Bid Set or Addendum X
It also gives me another Tag for the set in a consistent location.

[Andrew Veggian]

If you do start your takeoffs and realize later that you forgot to flatten first, then turn on the “Author” column in the markups list. Sort by Author, select all markups that are not yours, then flatten them.

Here’s my list of steps that I always go through to prep my drawings before takeoffs.

1. Delete all viewports (if prompted when I open the file for the first time)
2. Flatten (usually without recovery)
3. Create page labels (using Automark – sheet number only)
4. Create bookmarks (using Automark – sheet number and title)
5. OCR
6. Batch link (using the page labels I already created, and overwriting all existing hyperlinks)
7. Set scales
8. Create spaces (if needed to separate takeoffs)

[Troy DeGroot]

This is a great list, Andrew! I often forget OCR

[Nic Bitting]

@andrew-veggian thanks for sharing your process very clearly. From what I gather it sounds like you’re not taking the next step to turn the PDF into a Bluebeam “Set”, but rather working within the Combined PDF.

I’ve played around with marking up in Sets vs. the Combined PDF, and have found some drawbacks to Sets:

• Bookmarks don’t seam to work across the set
• Navigation among pages feels a bit cumbersome as I end up with many open tabs at the top as I work through sheets.
• From what I can tell CSV export is one page at a time

I understand Sets has advantages of loading quicker, and working better when multiple users need access to a file. That said, I’m curious how others have structured their workflow – do you create a Set for each project, or as Andrew described above do you work within the Combined PDF?

[Chadd Vogt]

Everyone hit the nail on the head above me, I will throw in that sometimes running Repair PDF and Reduce File Size under Batch helps a lot if you notice your highlight tools being wonky or the file being slow. Noticed that running both of those helps keep things moving smooth.

~Chadd

[Doug McLean]

My whole process is this

1) Remove all Viewports

2) Move any markups I wish to keep to their own layer

3) Flatten any/ all AutoCAD markups

4) Create new page labels

5) Apply Custom Columns and Statuses

We find we may have to do this if the person who sent us the drawings has done this as we want our own stuff. We may have to adjust our custom columns per the job as well. Its also a whole lot easier to do this as one drawing package

6) Use Headers and Footers to apply a Drawing Package tag

7) Hyperlink

8) Break into individual pages

9) Create a Set

10) Create a Drawing Log (if its a larger drawing package with multiple disciplines)

This actually works better in the long run when you work on something like SharePoint