In Bluebeam Revu 20 they have added the hexagon shape for both text boxes and callouts. This is a new feature but has a quirky result when you want to make a Bluebeam Hexagon adding leader lines.

Bluebeam Tip: When Adding Leader Lines to a Hexagon Text Box or Callout

Firstly, you can only have leader lines on 4 sides, not six. Secondly, the leader lines may appear as beginning inside the hexagon, rather than attached to the edges and outside of the hexagon. Leaving the leader lines appear as starting inside looks odd and should be corrected. To neaten this up, you’ll need to drag the handle of the leader line bend to outside the hexagon. Do not confuse this with the handle of the text box as that won’t help you. You’ll end up need to correct multiple leader lines that you already had fixed.

The video below explains clearly which handle you need to grab to make the Hexagon shaped tool with one or more leader lines connect properly in Bluebeam Revu 20. You may also add multiple leader lines to a single side. Note: The hexagon shape was not available in previous release levels of Bluebeam Revu.

Why Use a Hexagon on a Drawing?

I’ve seen the hexagon shape used occasionally on plan sets to address the sheet and detail number being referenced. The hexagon is more often used as a revision symbol or flag note on a dimension or feature. In older drawing in particular the hexagon designates an Engineering Change Notice or Engineering Change Order per ANSI Standards. If you’ve seen the hexagon shape used and can share sample images, please send those images to me and I’ll add them (with your kudos attached) to this post. Let’s help others in the AEC industry!

Have questions or still need help? Visit our Bluebeam Tips & Tricks on LinkedIn or reach out to carol@hagenbusiness.com. We’re here to help with all things Bluebeam. Ask us about the Bluebeam Bot (a chatbot) to help you learn Bluebeam Revu faster, onboard new employees and use voice commands to accomplish more hands-free.

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When creating new custom keyboard shortcuts, Bluebeam has made it easy to find a Tool or Command with the Search option. Before you get started, one thing that can be a bit frustrating is finding key combinations that aren’t already assigned. Sometimes the key combination is reserved by Windows, and cannot be reassigned. Still you can reassign many existing Bluebeam keyboard shortcuts, but I’d recommned not reassigning them to avoid confusion in team environments.

How to Create Custom Keyboard Shortcuts

Bluebeam already has a great video to see how to make them yourself:

Now for my suggestions on custom keyboard shortcuts which you can create yourself, or if you prefer, you can import these already made. Just ask here in an email and I’ll send you the .XML file that you can import in one click!

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts for Estimators

Calibrate: SHIFT + 1
Disable Line Weights: ALT + D

Custom Keyboard Shortcuts for Project Managers & Administrators

Reuse Markup Tool: ALT + M
Add Leader (to a Callout): Y (then drag your leader arrow with your mouse)
Combine: B

Custom Keyboard Shortcust for Office Personnel

Scan: CTL + SHIFT + 3
Edit Text: ALT + E
Erase Text: ALT + R
Headers & Footers: ALT + H
Reduce File Size: CTL + SHIFT + 4

Now that you have your custom shortcuts created, you can share them with your team using the export and import functions found at the bottom of keyboard shortcuts dialogue box. Hope you enjoy your productivity boost!

To learn more Bluebeam shortcuts, please subscribe to our blog, then click on the Search “magnifying glass” on our blog then search for shortcuts.

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Both customers were recipients of these PDF documents, not the author.  One client wanted to remove the title block from 800 pages.  The other wanted to replace a header from a 300 page PDF. Luckily both had a Revu Extreme license, so I stepped them thru the process using the Redaction feature.

Edit | Redaction

Mark for Redaction, then use your mouse to drag a rectangle over the area you want to remove.

You’ll notice that if you move your mouse over that area it will show up blacked out.  Hit the escape key to exit out of Redaction mode.  Click on the redaction area you just created so that the yellow handles appear.  You can control what color the redaction area is by clicking on the properties gear and selecting your preferred redact color.  Still with the yellow handles showing, right click and choose Apply to All Pages from the context drop down menu.

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Once you place your Legend on your document, with the handles still active, open the Legend’s properties tab. Scroll down to the appearance section and click on the dropdown arrow for the Source field. It is here you can change what the Legend counts to Current Page, All Pages or a Custom Range as shown in the sample below:

You’ll likely want to place the totals for the whole document on a title page and I would recommend you change the Title of the Legend to “Totals for this Project”.
While we’re here I should mention that you can also add columns to your Legend using Edit Columns and Change the Legend’s Table Style. If you do select the Gridlines Table Style, you’ll need to remember to adjust your line width to something greater than zero so the gridlines display.

If you haven’t used Legends before you may want to review how to use Legends for your Estimating Takeoffs. It’s also recommended you create Legends and add them to your tools sets. This video should help:

You can also use Legends in the Punch Workflow to display punch issues by disciple and status. watch this video to review the process:

If you are on an older version of Bluebeam Revu and want to upgrade to Revu 2016, please Email Me Your Contact Info and I’ll beat Bluebeam’s direct pricing. We also have a promotion running thru November 28, 2016 if you’re also interested in upgrading to Revu Extreme.

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First, a few tips on comparisons. The better the drawings, the better the comparison results. If you can, request vector drawings.
Revisions should also be issued as full sheets to make the process easier. See these and other guidelines for working in PDF at www.cpcoalition.com

If working with a single page revision, under Document | Comparison run the Compare Documents and chose Export from within the markups panel on the diff file (see Steps 1 and 2 below), then save the exported markups file with the name differences.bax

Next, under Document | Comparison run the Overlay Pages then Import the saved markups file, differences.bax, into the overlay. The results are shown in the first image at the top of this article.

What you end up with is a document both clouded and showing the overlaid differences. The benefit of doing both comparison processes is that you have a better way to review the changes. Oftentimes, the cloud may include multiple differences which the overlay clearly points out. Zoom in on the page then click on the first difference in the markup list. As you work through them, use the checkmark column in the Markups List to verify that you’ve noted each change. This is ideal for estimators who need to ensure they don’t miss anything and are concerned with multiple differences that are in close proximity… that can appear in a single clouded area. It also addresses small changes in a revision that architects may have forgotten to cloud.

If you use Revu’s Sets feature, Batch Compare and Batch Overlay features can be run directly from within your Set and either can be run against drawing revisions. Simply right-click one of the revisions and select either Batch Compare or Batch Overlay, as desired. If you are not familiar with Sets or the Batch functions, you may want to review the videos available under Help | Resources for these topics.

If you need help or Revu training, please email me with the topics you are interested and whether you want on-site or web training. We’ll get back with you shortly.

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The first thing you’ll want to do is change a setting in the Markup Preferences. Revu Settings|Preferences can be access using the shortcut (CTRL+K). From there navigate to the Markups Section and check the box to “Copy selected text into markups.”

Next you’ll want to add a custom column for Spec Section in your Markups Panel. To do this, open the Markups Panel (bottom panel) and click on Manage Columns.  Then choose Custom Column and add any necessary columns (Specification Reference, Drawing Sheet Number, Responsible Company, Due Date, etc), making each new column text so you can enter alpha/numeric data later. If you don’t have a program or application for Submittals these additional columns will make it easy for you to work in a spreadsheet format.

Before you start highlighting, you should also drag and drop these new columns in the order you need them. You can also hide columns you will not need by clicking the “Columns” and deselecting the columns that are unnecessary.

Start Highlighting and the text you highlight will automatically be added to the comments column in the Markups List. Add your Spec reference, drawing sheet number and responsible company in the Markups List for each markup highlight, then click Summary to generate the report, CSV file (for Excel) or XML file if you’re passing this info back to another application.

This process will streamline your steps to get the Submittal Register started and whether you prefer Excel, Prolog or another application lets’s you get the data ready for import/export.

What other uses do you see the highlighting copy to markups helping you with?  Share them in the comments so all readers can benefit from your ideas.

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Either turn the Navigation Menu on using the F4 function key (on some laptops you’ll need to press the Fn key as well), or do what I do and use the shortcuts for Previous View (Alt+Left Arrow) or Next View (Alt+Right Arrow). Those arrow keys sure are handy!

Other Navigation menu items that are often overlooked are scrolling pages and one full page. Most construction pros spend a ton of time in plan sets that are large format documents. Use the one full page to get out of a zoomed mode, then use the Page Up and Page Down to move through pages quickly. The One Full Page icon is 4th from the left, and Scrolling pages is the next icon over. Since it doesn’t have a shortcut key, you can also add these icons to a custom toolbar.

Of course if you want to navigate quickly through plans, you should learn more about Bluebeam Revu’s Batch Link, Sets and Drawing Log so that everyone’s navigation is fast and efficient when working with plans. You may also want to hyperlink details by using the visual search and hyperlink places. Navigation is one of the benefits of digital documents. If your plans aren’t linked you’re working too hard.

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Bluebeam Revu has helped many AEC professionals project a professional business image on PDFs. Adding markups can be a bit tricky especially when it comes to text. Bluebeam Revu’s Text Box, Callout and Cloud+ Markups all use a text box that you can drag out to size. If you have a line width greater than zero set in the properties you’ll often have a box larger than the text you’ve typed (see left image above). This appears a bit messy and is easy and quick to fix. Here’s how you can have Bluebeam Revu auto size markups for you.

Using the new Revu 2016 shortcut Alt-Z, Revu will tidy them up by resizing them to fit tightly around the text. Rather than applying Auto-Size Text Box Alt+Z on each markup as you place them, just use Ctl+A to select them all and then Alt-Z to tidy them up all at once (as shown in the right image above).

When you want your text to automatically auto size, based upon the size of the text box you drag out, Revu has a setting for that too. In the textbox, callout and cloud+ markups properties tab, there’s a check box option next to the font (found under the appearance section) that will auto size fonts. This works great for those of us with bifocals, but if you aren’t careful, this may still leave you with text boxes that are longer than they need to be.

Using the auto font size in your markups and applying the auto size text box will cleanup all your text markups for that crisp, professional image in your construction, architecture and engineering firm’s PDF documents. This is perfect for redlining, collaborating in Studio Sessions and improving your communications with your team. That’s it. Two Bluebeam Revu Tips in one post. Now go get ’em Bluebeamers!

You may also be interested in these other Bluebeam Revu Tips:

Take a Photo and Mark It Up
Why is My Markup Text Sideways in Bluebeam Revu?

Need Bluebeam Training? We provide web-based and on-site training throughout the United States and Carol Hagen is a Bluebeam Certified Instructor. To arrange for web-based Bluebeam Training using GoToMeeting, Email Me Your Contact Info. To make on-site training arrangements, please call.

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How to Fix Markup Text that is sideways or upside down
Avoid using the Rotate View option. You can tell if someone has rotated the view by opening the Thumbnails Tab in the left panel. If you’ve rotated the view, the Page is not actually turned and appears in the Thumbnail in its original page orientation. Bluebeam places the markups according to the page’s orientation.

Instead use the Rotate Page option before placing markups. You can get to Rotate Pages in the Thumbnails Tab by right clicking on a single page (or CTRL-A for all pages). You can also get to it under Document | Pages | Rotate Page or use the shortcut CTRL-SHFT-R.

Rotate View is for display purposes, when you only need to temporarily look at the page in another orientation. To save everyone in the company time, rotate all your pages to the correct orientation and save the document. Then anyone else who views it won’t have to rotate the view or page again.

New to this blog? Please follow me on Twitter or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Other Bluebeam Tips you may find helpful:

Convert Handwriting to Text on a tablet
OCR Kills 2 Birds with 1 Stone
Visualizing Percent Complete with your Project Owner

The post Why is the Markup Text Sideways in Bluebeam? appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

How to Set Up WebTab Favorites
• Open a WebTab
• At the bottom of the dialogue box, click on the “Favorites” Star
• Choose Edit Favorites OR navigate to the page you want and choose Add current page to Favorites list
• If you selected Edit Favorite, Click on the Star in the upper left of the Edit Web Favorites dialogue box and add the website title and URL then click done.

While in Edit Web Favorites, you can drag and drop web favorites into the Home pages section.
Whichever home page is listed first is your default when opening a new WebTab.

You also can import your favorites from Internet Explorer and/or export the Favorites you’ve added manually and share them with other Bluebeamers.

Architects will likely want to add sites like ARCAT, HagerCo, etc.
Your Team members should have the CPCoalition (for PDF Guidelines) and hopefully, all my readers will want to add my Blog containing all these great Bluebeam Tips too!

If you’d like to use my favorites list which includes ARCAT, HagerCo, CADdetails.com, the Sweets Network, CPCoalition, and My Blog, feel free to download this file from BOX, and simply add it to your WebTab Standard Favorites in the settings as show below. You can always add your own favorites to this list later.

What WebTabs are your favorites? Please share them in the comments.

If you liked this Tip you may also want to Read these past Bluebeam Tips:
How to Close Multiple Files Quickly
Working with More Screen Real Estate

If you need Bluebeam Training, an upgrade to Extreme or additional licenses, just Email Me Your Contact Info and I’ll get in touch. We love referrals!

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