Later in the year, I ran into them again at the 2019 Procore conference in Phoenix. Apparently they are the drone business most interested in integrations to popular construction solutions… they have over 80 integrations and apps completed. Have you been to their website yet?

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As you know, we have upgraded our BB licenses to 2017. All of my PM’s are complaining since the upgrade that BB has run INCREDIBLY slow on their machines. Have you heard this from anyone else? Do you know of any settings that we can change to adjust the way the program renders documents? Currently, when switching between pages, BB will draw each line on the document individually and it takes a very long time to navigate. Is there anything we can change to make that work better?

The solution to these problems is found in the Rendering Settings. Revu’s default is “Iterative Draw” but in some situations (especially with high resolution and 4K displays) the time to display the PDF page can become unbearably slow, so disabling partial redraws will speed things up.

Here are the steps to change the settings:
1. Settings | Preferences (CTRL+K)
2. Choose Rendering
3. Change the Rendering Style to “Wait for Completion”
4. Click the “OK” button.

By changing this setting, the screen will not update until the full page is ready to display. Hopefully, this will accelerate your speed.

If this doesn’t resolve your speed issues, you may want to try a few other Tips for Improving Performance in Revu

Now go get ’em Bluebeamers!

The post Is Bluebeam Revu 2017 Slow? appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Create the Link Places (Destinations)

1. Navigate to a Detail Sheet.
2. Open the Links Tab (Use Tab Access if it isn’t showing in the left panel).
3. Zoom in on a single detail (to the view that you want the link to show).
4. Click on the green + in the Places section of the Links Tab.
5. In the Places dialogue box, enter the detail’s description (Tip: If you want them to appear in numerical order, put the number before the description of the detail in the Name field – See below).  Select Snapshot View then click on Get Rectangle.  Drag out a rectangle around the detail (Tip: Make sure you get the whole detail including the scale inside your rectangle so anyone who lands here can see everything they need). Click OK.  This will then display in the Places section for that sheet (page) in your Links Tab.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 for each detail.
7. By using the Places Link, if a detail is changed in a revision, you will only need to Edit the Place to update all the links.  To do this, in the Links Tab, right click on the Place and choose Edit Place.

HyperLink Your Detail Callouts to the Places    

1.  Open the Search Tab in the Right Panel
2.  Zoom in on a single detail callout on the plan set
3.  Choose Visual Search then click Get Rectangle. Drag the rectangle around the detail callout (Tip: if your detail callout has a circle around it, either stay inside the circle when dragging the rectangle and be careful not to include any part of the circle OR make the rectangle tightly around the circle.  In the Search dropdown choose Current Document if all your sheets are in one multi-page document, or Current Folder if your sheets are in separate documents by disciple (Architectural, Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, etc). In the Options Section uncheck all options, then click Search.  It will display the results in the lower portion of the Search Tab.
4. Still in the Search Tab, scroll thru the results to see if they all are accurately identifying the correct detail.  At to the top of the search panel, click the first check mark symbol “Check All“, it checks the checkbox next to all the results.  Uncheck any that do not apply.
5. Click on the second from the left Check symbol and in the dropdown choose Hyperlink Checked. If you’re working in a multipage document, choose Place and select the correct Place from the dropdown, then Click OK.  If your sheets are all separate documents, change the Jump to document to the correct detail page, then select the correct Place from the dropdown of that page, then Click OK. This will hyperlink all occurrences of that detail callout symbol in the current document or current folder.
6. Repeat 3-5 for each unique detail callout.

Not everyone takes the time to hyperlink plans to individual details.  For many, Revu Extreme’s Batch Link function, which links all the pages, is close enough.  Are linked plans a digital standard on all your construction projects?  If not, contact me to get started on Bluebeam Revu and we’ll even beat Bluebeam direct pricing for you!

If you’d like to take Bluebeam Revu Extreme for a spin, download a 30-day free trial today.

The post Bluebeam Tips: Hyperlink Plans to Details appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

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 add a Responsibility column with a Choice to your Markup Work list:
You must have a PDF document open to proceed. Choose which profile you want to add the custom Responsibility column to or
1. In the worklist, click on the gear next to Columns to Manage Columns.
2. Choose the Custom tab and select Add if the Responsibility column isn’t already there..
Enter “Responsibility” as the Name and pick “Choice” from the dropdown (otherwise choose “Modify” and change the Responsibility Column’s Type to “Choice”).

3. In the Item field, enter the name of who will be responsible. This typically is either a person’s name or a company name.
4. In the Subject field, enter the subject for the item. This links to the Subject property of a markup, allowing for selective filtering of the list based on the markup.

Note 1: The Subject of the Markup must match the Item’s Subject exactly for it to appear as a selection in the markup’s Responsibility dropdown choices (i.e. it is case sensitive). If you do not include a Subject for an Item, it will be available to use on all markups regardless of the subject.
Note 2: If you want to also have the option to enter a name not listed in the dropdown choices, click on Format while in the Add Column or Modify Column dialogue box and check the box for “Allow Custom Text”.
Note 3: Many Bluebeamers have custom profiles for each project as the Responsibility list may be job specific. A responsibility column is also handy for Design and Constructability Reviews.
Note 4: If you want certain custom columns, custom tool sets and toolbars available in Studio Sessions, they are stored in the document (or **Saved in a Profile). Make your changes to your worklist columns, etc with the document opened that you plan to upload to Studio. Save the document after you have made your customizations, then upload it to Studio.
Note 5: If you have 10+ Subjects or Responsibility Items (names) to add, it may be quicker to create a file and use the Import Option in the Modify Columns dialogue box.

Creating a Responsibility List to Import
This begins with a CSV file. You can create a CSV file even without Excel by just using NotePad using these steps:
1. Access Notepad click on Start | All Programs | Accessories | NotePad or if using Windows 8+ use the Charms feature and search for “NotePad”
2. Using the format “Item”,”Subject” type in one choice per line with each component in “quotes” and separated by a comma as shown here:

3. Once you’ve added all your entries, Click File | Save as and name it ResponsibilityList.TXT (save it as a .TXT file on your desktop).
4. Use Steps 1 and 2 from the “How to add a Responsibility code to your Markups List” above and select Import.
Note: The Import option will replace an already existing list of Items in your custom column for the document you have open.
If you **save it to a profile it is changing the list for all documents using this profile moving forward.

**Check with your network administrator before saving to a profile as your company’s profiles may be on a shared drive and impact all other Bluebeam Revu users.

If you’d like to hire me to create Custom Profiles, Toolbars and Tool Sets for your firm, please Email Me Your Contact Info.

The post Bluebeam Tip: Adding a Responsibility Column with a Choice to your Worklist appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

There are a few Settings | Preferences (CTL+K) for the Snapshot Tool that you can tweak including the resolution, whether you want vector graphics when pasting to another program and including markups in your snapshots. Obviously for the punch process you’d want to include the markups but there are applications for not including the markups as well.

If you have questions you need answered about Bluebeam, reach out to me on LinkedIn, email me or add your question in the comments. Perhaps your question will appear in a future Bluebeam Revu Tip on this blog.

The post Bluebeam Revu Quick Tip: Spaces Snapshots appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

When using the Pen tool you can have Bluebeam automatically recognize your handwriting before placing the markup. It places the associated text in the comments column of the Markups list for you. To turn this on, adjust your Revu preferences for your tablet.

Go to Preferences (Ctrl-K)| Select Tablet | Check the Auto Recognize Text box

This option only appears if you have a tablet PC, touch screen or tablet device attached to your computer and is unchecked as the default in Bluebeam Revu. If you use a Surface Pro or other tablet PC you’ll want to change this today.
It works best with hand printed text.

The sensitivity is for pressure sensitivity when using the pen or highlight tool. Pressing down firm produces a thicker line. Note that not all tablet devices support pressure sensitivity.

This comes in handy when you don’t have a custom punch symbol with the specific description you need. You can then lasso multiple markups together like a punch symbol and the pen markup and group them together, or in my case above, the arrow and the pen markup.

If you liked this tip you might also like:
Bluebeam Revu iPad tips: Adding audio, video and perform field measurements

The post Bluebeam Trick: Handwriting to Text Comment on Tablet appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Update 5/30/14: You can also email documents to Dropbox https://sendtodropbox.com/

First, you’ll need to decide what folder in Box you want your Revu Files sent to. Login to your Box account, navigate or create the folder you want your Bluebeam files to go to then click on More and mouse over the Upload Options | Email Files to this Folder
Then it will bring up the Folder Properties. Make sure you check the “Allow uploads to this folder via email” option.

This makes an email address for uploading directly to your specified Box folder. Now copy the email address it generates and use it to email documents directly to Box from inside Bluebeam Revu Standard. To make this automatic and not have to type the email address each time you can create a script.

To create a script to Flatten and email to that folder you’ll need a Bluebeam Extreme license. Then follow these steps:

To open the Bluebeam Script Editor, navigate to the Documents Tab and click on Script
Enter the Description “Flatten and Upload to my Box Folder”

Grab the Box logo or an appropriate icon you have as a JPEG file on your computer. To grab the box logo off the internet, you can search for Box in Google then right click on the Box logo and choose “Save Image As” and name the file Box in the .jpg format. Screenshot for those who need the help:

Now for the actual Bluebeam Script. Enter in the script dialogue box type “Flatten()” Hit Enter for the next line and type “Email(yourboxfolderemailaddress)”.

If you want your documents to load faster on the iPad, you may want to reduce the file size before uploading to Box. Just add the line
ReduceFileSize(High,150,true,false,true) [where High reduces the image level, 150 is the DPI, then True to Drop Fonts, False to not drop thumbnails, metadata and other Miscellaneous items, and True to Compress] before the Flatten in the script editor. Keeping the thumbnails can be helpful on the iPad.

You may want to automatically add Headers and Footers to this script as well, especially if you’re in business development and are creating customer facing documents, brochures, etc.

The simplist form of the HeaderFooter script is designating the header contents (left, center right) and footer content (left center right). An Example would be HeaderAndFooter(“”,”<>”,””,”Carol Hagen”,www.hagenbusiness.com,602-570-7289) which centers the date in the header and my name in the footer left, website in the footer center and phone number in the footer right on all pages of the document.

Please share this with your construction contacts as they are using Bluebeam too. If you need help with scripts or need some Bluebeam training, feel free to reach out.

The post Bluebeam Revu Tip: Email or Script to Send to Box.com File Folder appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Extreme has more great features including:
Scripts – process multiple functions in one click like “Flatten and email”, set security, add header/footer, stamp, reduce file size, etc
Forms Creation – Create fillable forms, stamps and templates
Redaction – Hide sensitive content permanently from prying eyes
Batch Link – Hyperlink all your plan set pages to the sheet index automatically.
Structures – Make multilevel bookmarks for your plans grouped by specialty: architectural, civil, electrical, etc

Watch for upcoming Bluebeam tips on all these features. To save time and improve team productivity with Bluebeam Extreme.
request a quote today to upgrade multiple licenses from CAD or Standard to Extreme.

The post Bluebeam Trick: OCR Kills Two Birds with One Click appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Bluebeam keyboard shortcuts can save you an enormous amount of time and many are worth the effort of memorization. Bluebeam has a Keyboard shortcuts document hidden inside Revu. This PDF document contains all the shortcuts for Markup and Editing, Viewing, Navigation, Page Manipulation, Show Tabs, Advanced Text, File Operations and miscellaneous items. All the function key shortcuts, and keystroke combinations of Alt, Ctrl and Shift are packed into this fabulous resource that most Bluebeamers have overlooked.

The Bluebeam Revu Keyboard Shortcuts is accessed by navigating to the Help Tab and clicking on the down arrow (inverted triangle) next to the Help icon. I find most people who find this document open it and only look at the first few pages. In essence, they only see the mouse navigation buttons. Continue on to the fourth thru sixth pages and you’ve hit the mother lode!

Now go get ’em Bluebeamers!

More Blog posts you might be interested in:
Bluebeam Tip: Custom Keyboard Shortcuts in Revu 2018

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