[David Cutler]

Based on a suggestion that Troy had made on a webinar I viewed I typically set the scale for each page individually. We already have a best practice of checking the scale with a custom measurement on each sheet called “scaling”. When I get a new drawing set as part of getting familiar with the project I page through each sheet and use the custom scaling tool to measure the length of the visual scale on the drawing sheet. When I do this Bluebeam prompts me to set the scale. Two clicks, a quantity entry and another click and my scale is set.

[David Cutler]

Great tip Troy.  I never knew this was an option.

[David Cutler]

Good questions Troy.  I did check the properties and the markup is not locked – I learned something here though as I didn’t know it was possible to lock markups.  Grips are Yellow.  No Sessions here – I’m the only one working on this project…

[David Cutler]

I’m not familiar with “Power Query” Doug.  Is that an Excel function or another program?  I did investigate Pivot Tables a bit but didn’t get too far with it.  At this point I’m using the “Subtotal” option in the “Outline” tools in Excel.  It’s not perfect as I need to add some formulas in every time to get my item numbers, descriptions and units of measure where I need them, but it keeps me from having to re-key everything.

I’m not positive but I think my manager still writes everything down on a yellow pad, adds it up with a calculator and then keys the quantities into B2W so I’m light years ahead of him.  Need to make some time to show him some of the new tricks…

[David Cutler]

Format painter is a great tool!  I use it in Word, Excel and even Outlook.  To make this even easier you can add the format painter button to your toolbars to save a couple of clicks when you need it.

If you need to change the description on a number of markups – say to change from asphalt to concrete – you can select multiple items in the markup list and then open up the properties menu and make the change once there.

 

[David Cutler]

The estimating software that we use, Bid 2 Win (B2W), only allows 4 specific columns to be imported from Excel.  If setup correctly when you import your takeoff quantities the software will match your data with the pay item database that has already been established.  The challenge is that the task number, description and unit of measure must match <span style=”text-decoration: underline;”>exactly</span> in order for the match to work.  To make this work I exported a master list of tasks from B2W into Excel and then I copy and paste the item number and description from Excel into my custom tools as I create them.

At this point I include both the task ID and description in both the “Subject” and “Label” fields for my custom tools.  I also use this information in separate custom “Item” and “Description” columns.

Once I complete my takeoff I export the comments into a .CSV format.  I then use a number of Excel tools to combine the individual takeoff items into groups and sub totals and then import the data into the software.  It took some practice to work out some kinks but I have it working pretty slickly now!