This is great; it’s a huge advantage when an estimator has constructability knowledge. I like how you use the “Location” column when you have, I assume, utilities and things that don’t fit completely inside a “Space”. And the “Lift” column is great for many reasons, I would assume. I built a very similar idea with a lumber yard where we…

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I always tell my students, as estimators, they are actually data collectors; it benefits everyone if you can pass the baton to the next person downstream rather than have them learn everything again, or worse yet, miss it.

Nobody talks about this enough: the follow-up measuring on payment applications.

The first takeoff on a job gets all the attention. Tool Chest built, colors set, everything organized. Then the project starts moving, and every billing period you’re back in that file trying to figure out what actually got done since last time,…

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Full credit to @isaac-harned on that part. I know when to bring in the right people!

I could probably flood this thread with examples and never run out, but I want to hear what everyone else has built too.

Just in the last month, I’ve built custom Bluebeam Revu profiles for a high-end cabinetry shop in Montana, a commercial framing contractor in California, and an industrial piping contractor in Dallas. I’m about to start one for…

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Are you referring to the number shortcut assigned in My Tools? You can now click on the properties gear on each toolset and enable number shortcuts. Not sure if that helps or not. One thing that has made a huge difference for me is that we can rearrange the order of the columns in the Tool Chest now. Label is easier to see when you put it…

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Love it, just requires a little creativity to end up with additional value.

I think custom columns might be the most fun part of Bluebeam. It’s like a puzzle when everything falls into place.

Spent parts of last week building tool chests for a couple of customers’ niche scopes, and it reminded me that Bluebeam’s default libraries are built for the most common trades, not every trade.

If what you do is mainstream markups or general architectural work, you’re mostly covered out of the box. But get into something more…

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At least they have an Unbound in London now. I need Shan to fly me over one of these days. 🤣

Who’s planning on attending Unbound in April in Las Vegas?

I will, of course be there; I haven’t missed one since 2015

Fingers crossed they allow me to present again!

This is one I watch trip up sharp people constantly: two markups that look completely identical on the page land as two separate line items in a legend. Same tool, same measurement, same everything you can see at a glance.

Nine times out of ten it comes down to something the legend checks that you can’t, color, subject text, or a label field…

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That’s a great practice, and having a reminder would help as the weeks quickly fly by. Especially for someone like you with so many profiles and advanced setups.

Every few months I hear from a student who lost real time: a customized toolbar, a Tool Chest, a batch of hyperlinks they carefully built out, all gone because a profile got overwritten or a project file got rebuilt from scratch.

It’s almost never a software problem. It’s that nobody built a habit of backing up the pieces that took the longest…

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Quick poll for the takeoff people in here.

When you’re counting repeating items on a set, things like ceiling vents, receptacles, doors, windows, manholes, whatever repeats itself page after page, what’s your go-to method?

1. Custom count symbol built into a custom Tool Chest for each item type
2. Default checkmark, square, circle, triangle,…

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I didn’t think you were; I completely understand. If you need help building custom tools, you can check out my digital courses to get you up to speed quickly. Or we can discuss me building them for you. Welcome to the Brainery, thanks for joining the community!

Thanks for reaching out and downloading my free content. All of the tools are included in one downloadable zip file. Some of the divisions are not as complete as others. After several years of creating 1615 tools, I had to publish them at some point, or I never would have. I hope you understand. Sorry for the confusion.

doesn’t hurt to have that visual on the sheet just in case the calibration changes somehow.

I wasn’t aware there was an application already. Thanks for letting us know. I agree you have to learn the basics before you get overwhelmed with the possibilities. I’ll have to find the link and start brainstorming a course or two.

This is one I hear from students all the time: the scale changes somewhere in the set, and nobody catches it until the numbers are already off.

You get moving fast on a big set, and one sheet quietly switches scale on you without anything on the page flagging it. Sometimes the numbers look wrong enough to catch. Sometimes they’re off by…

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One of the most common questions I get from newer Bluebeam users: why do my markup settings keep following me from one profile to the next when I don’t want them to?

Here’s what’s going on: Bluebeam’s markup defaults live at the program level, not the profile level. So when you use “Set as Default” on a font size or color, it applies…

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Here’s something I end up telling people when they ask about marking up drawings on an
iPad in the field:

Flatten the layers you don’t need before you walk out the door. The file loads faster, your
session syncs cleaner, and you’re not hunting through markup layers that have nothing to
do with what you’re looking at on-site.

Seems obvious…

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What I know of your system Doug, the integration is so fine-tuned, they couldn’t function unless they completely committed to the workflow.

Sometimes it just takes one time-saving feature to blow their mind and convert them. The trouble is figuring out which one will trigger them. When I was a BIM Manager transitioning 70 employees across 7 offices to 3D design, I would print 3D images from my models, and purposely leave them on the printer to hear people talk about them and…

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Here’s a pattern I keep running into when I talk to companies about their Bluebeam setup:

Someone on the team put real time into building a custom Tool Chest. It’s solid, for them. Organized around how they work.

And then nobody else uses it.

Not because it’s bad. But because it was built around one person’s workflow, not around how the whole…

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I don’t have any experience with SketchUp, but I would love to see what you come up with.

Great to have you in the Brainery @maxskewes

If you haven’t already looked, there might be more tools in my free download that you can apply.

Bluebeam Tool Sets

Another option to learn how to build powerful tools is in my Takeoff and Estimating classes. In 201, you will learn to build the tools,…

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Keep us posted if you find the recording. I’d love to see it. As you said, this would be powerful to anyone doing searches for doors, windows, columns, footings, anything really.

Hey everyone. If you haven’t caught it yet, the recording is out.

Thanks again to @lizlarsen @isaac-harned and @mitchyoungs

Advanced JavaScript in Bluebeam Revu, Real-World Automation for Smarter Workflows (Behind the Build)

Welcome to the group @dbernhardt58, glad you’re here. JavaScript is not my specialty, but I know there are others in the group who are deep into it. Have you seen any of the recent Behind the Build webinars? There were Into and Advanced JavaScript webinars put on by @lizlarsen @Isaac and @mitchyoungs

Video Category

There are some good ideas here, but also some areas that may confuse others on your team. I read you are the only one in your role, so it works great. When I build tools for customers, I always build them for the intern that hasn’t been hired yet. It should be teachable so they intuitively trip into doing things correctly. If they go out of…

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@dchambers I’m not sure I understand your question. Do you have a drawing or some sort of example?

Glad we had a chance to chat last week @Doug McLean We’ll schedule another one soon. It’s good to hear you’re taking care of yourself through all this, I know all of us are thinking about you. I’m glad you have work to keep your mind busy. You have my number my friend.

Sorry for the delayed response @jjmurphy

I spent several years creating the 1615 tools included in the free download. Its by no means a complete set for any one part of the industry, but I had to publish them at some point, or I never would have. I hope you understand. Sorry for the confusion.

From here you have a few options. I have…

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Thanks for sharing David. It seems to me that when he offset, it was just a markup, but I believe you could still convert it to your custom tool after. For now anyway. Exciting times.

Hey everyone, the Behind the Build recording of Intro to JavaScript in Bluebeam is now available. Thanks @lizlarsen and @isaac-harned for sharing your wisdom with the UC2 community.

I’m still on 21.8, and I haven’t had this issue.

Was it while working with certain markups, or just random?

Are you having trouble with the same file, or does it happen no matter what file is open?