[David Cutler]

Is “backup” a feature of the software, or is this a process that your IT Team does Vince? (I don’t see “backup” as a command in Revu and the in software help doesn’t show any topics.)

If your IT Team is backing up your computer to an off-site location I would expect “what” is backed up is controlled by their settings, not by anything in the software. If they are backing up your entire hard drive then I would think that anything that you have saved, including profiles, custom tools and such would be restorable.

Disclaimer – I am not an IT professional in any capacity – and, like Troy, I can’t remember the last time we backed up our home computer. My understanding is that our IT team backs up our company computers on a regular basis so that they can restore them if something happens. Additionally we save everything to a network drive that is also backed up on a regular basis. Thank you for bringing this up as now I will have to ask to confirm my understanding is correct…

[David Cutler]

That’s a great timesaving and cost saving idea Vince!

I’m a fan of having one file with all of the sheets in it as I find it easiest to scroll through the pages. Brings me back to my younger days when you could page through a set of plans and tab them up with sticky notes I guess.

While I’ve seen a number of discussions about using “Sets” in Revu, I haven’t really explored the topic extensively yet. I think that Sets would work for you for eliminating your heating layouts in your example, and, if my understanding is correct it may not slow down your computer as much when dealing with 700 pages.

At the end of the day the real question is if your printing company is savvy enough to print a set and will they do so at the same price as a 500 page single PDF. If not, maybe you need to introduce them to @uchapter2 …

[David Cutler]

Alright, the suspense is killing me, who’s got some “new tricks” learned from XCON to share?

[David Cutler]

I may be wrong @vince , but my understanding is that if you leave the “Allow Markup Recovery (Unflatten)” check box blank your markups should be a permanent part of the PDF that is not able to be “hacked”. This is one of the reasons that it is important to create a copy of the file prior to flattening as @troydegroot suggested so that you maintain your ability to edit your markups.

[David Cutler]

Thank you for the link @troydegroot !

[David Cutler]

Could you expand on “I need to update my list of individual parts to save to the profile before you save the profile” more Troy? I’m getting closer to sharing my custom tools with others on my team and want to make the rollout as smooth as possible.

[David Cutler]

That would be my uneducated guess…

I had a similar issue using some of my custom tools in an older version of Revu. An area tool that was setup to measure area in Square Yards defaulted back to Square Feet. Not a good way to give people confidence in your custom tools…

Yet another reason to upgrade to the current version and add maintenance!

[David Cutler]

Quite the spreadsheet Vince! Nice job for your first video.

So the Bluebeamer in me is thinking how about creating some custom tools to capture your measurements while highlighting in Revu and then use quantity link to pull the data into your spreadsheet so that you don’t have to key anything in… This would leave you with a presentation grade highlight in review that you could snip and paste into your spreadsheet for future reference.

You could probably use “Spaces” to identify each unit and then copy your markups from one unit to the next, making appropriate changes as you go.

Looking forward to seeing more videos from you!

[David Cutler]

Good morning Vince. I’ll have to make some time to go through this. Looking forward to seeing what you have here.

[David Cutler]

After getting a glimpse of your spreadsheet I could see how you could overload Power Query @vince !

[David Cutler]

Your macro setup is great Rob! I perform my takeoff in a very similar fashion, and then reduce my data in a .CSV export. I perform the same sort of data reduction in Excel, but I go through the steps every time.

Looks like I need to learn about macros!

Thank you for sharing.

Dave

[David Cutler]

Interesting approach Brett. I haven’t used a “mail merge” for years. On a quick google search I found something that looks promising, but I haven’t explored it:

https://support.bluebeam.com/online-help/revu20/Content/RevuHelp/Menus/Tools/Form/Data/Data.htm

As a different approach have you tried using Revu to save the PDF as either a Word document or an Excel file? In Word you could then setup a similar merge to what you are using in Adobe. If you are able to save it into Excel format you might just be able to work with simple formulas.

[David Cutler]

Interesting to know that there is a function in Adobe Pro that allows you to pull the data in.

A couple of follow up questions about your current process:

1. What is the name of the function in Adobe Pro?

2. Does the functionality read/match the bid form or do you have to ensure that the data is in the correct order in your Excel file?

3. Is the bid form consistent with regards to the location of the fields that you need to fill? Is the item description limited to 2 lines or do they sometimes stretch to 3 lines?

4. For large bids are pages 2, 3, 4 etc. consistent with regards to the number of items on each page?

As with most estimating tasks the time you invest in the begging to set up your estimate format greatly reduces bid day stress. You might be able to use a procedure similar to what I outlined above to set your “initial” bid at bid time – 60 minutes and then make the final adjustments on the items that have last minute changes with simple text boxes with white backgrounds that sit on top of the original numbers. As a final check have your total locations setup with text boxes ready to be entered at the time you close your bid.

One word of caution – ensure that you flatten your bid document before you submit it. This should eliminate the risk of someone accidently moving some of your data after you have submitted it.

Bonus thought – for your last minute changes you could create a custom tool with two text boxes pre-sized and formatted to drop in to post your final adjustments.

Interested to see what others recommend…

[David Cutler]

When you look at Brett’s form below @troydegroot is there a way to pull data from Excel into Revu using auto created fields as you suggest above? Would this be some sort of “reversed” quantity link?

[David Cutler]

That’s what I found with this drawing set Vince – too much information on one sheet. I’ve always struggled with deciphering the layer names that the designers use. Using the Isolate tool I will be able to clearly see what is on each layer. I might even re-name some of them so that I don’t have to keep guessing.