The Construction Punch Process has been a time-consuming process for most general contractors until Bluebeam Revu and a few other software solutions added iPad apps. The problem with most applications is that you have to manually add the building number, floor number and room number to each punch item. Another issue is that your punch item reports aren’t hyperlinked to each punch markups on the drawing, often causing confusion for the specialty trades.

With Bluebeam Revu’s Spaces feature you can have the location automatically logged with each punch item or mark-up and use it to sort and report your punch by floor, room or building. It’s easy and just takes a few minutes of prep work.

Create Spaces
On multi-story buildings you’ll begin by creating Nested Spaces. Nested Spaces let you create spaces inside spaces e.g. Rooms 100 – 120 inside Floor 1

Open up the spaces tab or use the shortcut Alt+S.
On the Space tab button bar, click Add Space.

Bluebeam Spaces Tab

Click and drag a rectangle or multi-click a polygon to define the floor or area.
In the Add Space dialog, enter a name such as “Floor 1,” then click OK.
Click inside the floor or area to begin defining a space on that floor.
In the Add Space dialog, enter a name such as “100” for room 100, then click OK.

Spaces Tip: By referencing just a number, you can create spaces in room number order and Bluebeam will automatically increment the number by one for you.

NOTE: Spaces can be nested but cannot partially overlap; spaces must be separate from or entirely contained within one another.

Once your spaces are defined, they’ll automatically be added to the markups list whenever you add a markup or punch item to the drawing. If you don’t see the Spaces column in your markups list, you may need to scroll to the right or click the columns button in the markups list and select spaces to add it to the markups grid.

You’ll need Bluebeam Revu version 10 or higher for access to the Spaces feature so if you’re still on Bluebeam Revu 9.5, let me know via Email and I’ll expedite your upgrade to Revu 11.

Reminder: To ensure every punch item on your report is hyperlinked to the corresponding punch symbol on your drawing don’t forget to Flatten before emailing your Punch Report. Plattening ensures the links won’t be broken if your email recipients open the PDF with a PDF viewer other than Bluebeam.

BONUS: The larger the project, the more mission critical the punch process is. When you need to be punching one floor, having the trades correcting the punch on another floor and your inspector performing a back check on another floor all at the same time, you’ll want to use “Real-Time” Punch using Bluebeam Studio. It expedites the process and your subs, architects and inspectors can update their status live (note this video is 30+ minutes in length)

All this is included in Bluebeam Revu. That’s why over 500,000 people are licensed to use Bluebeam around the world. Please share this with your construction business associates – you’ll make friends for life. After all doesn’t everyone want to work smarter not harder?

The post Bluebeam Tip: Make Your Construction Punch Process Faster with Spaces appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Creating Your Own Punch Symbol set in Bluebeam begins with a CSV file. You can create a CSV file even without Excel by just using NotePad. To access Notepad click on Start | All Programs | Accessories | NotePad.

Using the format “Subject”,”Code”,”Comment” (the comment is the detail description) type in one code per line with each component in “quotes” and separated by a comma as shown here:
Once you added all your entries, save the it as .TXT file.

Next, Navigate to the Tool Chest and click on the gear [1] just below the tool chest to open Manage Tool Sets,

In the Manage Tool Sets click on Add [2], Name the Punch group PunchKeytrade(where trade is a specific specialty ie. Electrical, Mechanical, Carpentry, etc).
This will appear as the header for a group of punch symbols and will appear in alphabetical order in your Tool Chest. If you are a general contractor you’ll want to create separate symbol groups for each trade to make it easy for the subcontractors to update the punch status during the back check process. This is particularly useful if you are also using Bluebeam Studio to perform a real-time punch and back check.

Once the Punch Group is created, click Modify [3] and click on the Punch Key Import [4] button (only in Revu 11+), then navigate to the .TXT file you created, select it and click OK. This will import each line of the .TXT file into the Tools window on the Modify Tool Set pane as shown below:

To finish, Make sure the relative path box is checked and optionally the show in all Profiles (if you desire), then Click OK to complete the Modify Tool Set.

The post Bluebeam Tip: How to Create Your Own Punch Symbols Quickly appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

1. Navigate to the Markups List
2. Press CTL-A to select all markups
3. Choose the desired function: Email, Print or Export Pages

The Page selection will prefill with the highlighted pages only. This is also true with the search function in Bluebeam.

The post Bluebeam Tip: How to Only Print, Email or Export Pages with Markups appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Bluebeam has many options toolbars and tabs that take up valuable real estate on your screen. When working on detailed drawing every inch counts so today it’s time you looked at the Interface button, located on the far right of the View Tab. It looks like this:

Toggling on/off the panels, command bar, status bar and navigation bar frees up real estate on your screen. You can even hide the tabs showing your open documents. You can go from a Fit Width setting File | View | Fit Width (CTL+0) like this:

To this to see more of your documents at once.

You can of course also use the F11 key (the long cut to this is File | View| Full Screen, but you’ll want to toggle off the panels first or you’ll still have the left panel showing

Be careful to turn these back on or you may find yourself going crazy trying to remember commands. I’ve also seen people turn the status bar off (at the very bottom) and wonder why they can’t start a markup in the spot they click on. Snap to grid, Markup or content are great when you want them on but can drive you crazy if you don’t realize they are on.

Please share this with your other Bluebeam co-workers and reach out to me with any Bluebeam questions.
You may find these other Bluebeam Tips helpful too:

Bluebeam Tip: Callouts and Leader Lines
How to Deskew a Bluebeam PDF

The post Bluebeam Revu Tip: Working with More Screen Real Estate appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

To Customize your floating toolbar and add the mark-up tools you use most, right-click on the floating toolbar and selecting Customize. You’ll need to do this before entering tablet mode as there is no “right-click” option with a pen stylus.

Some of my favorite items to add are email template, deskew, callout and previous view. What will you be adding to your floating toolbar?

My next tip will discuss email templates.

If you liked this post you may also be interested in:

The Fastest Way to Deskew a Document

How to Add Dynamic Text to a Toolchest Symbol

The post Bluebeam Tip: Floating Toolbar Customization appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Using your keyboard, Press Ctrl+Alt+D.
Your cursor will change to crossbars.
Click and drag a line that should be horizontal in the PDF. (Alternatively, you can also click two points.)
The Page Setup dialog will appear,
showing a preview of the adjusted PDF. Click OK to complete the align/de-skew operation.

Another fast way to deskew is to add the Deskew button to one of your tool bars.

If you don’t own Bluebeam Revu, download a 30 day free trial today.

The post Bluebeam Tip: Fastest Way to DeSkew (Straighten) a Scanned Document appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Here’s how to create a simple symbol with dynamic text:
In Bluebeam Revu, Dynamic Text is not directly supported in symbols, however you can include a stamp that contains dynamic text. The dynamic text is updated when the symbol is added to the PDF.

Here is a quick example of creating a symbol that includes dynamic text:
1. Add the DateTime stamp to the PDF.
2. Create a Rectangle around the stamp. (You can use other markups like cloud, etc)
3. Select and then Group them. (Lasso them together and then press Ctrl-G).
4. Right-click and then click Add to Tool Chest. (or drag the grouped item into your tool chest of choice)
5. Add the symbol to the PDF.

The dynamic text for the date and time are updated when the symbol is added to the PDF. Now go get ’em Bluebeamers!

The post Bluebeam Tip: Add Dynamic Text to Your Tool Chest Symbol appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Searchable Text is Highlighted

To learn more about the AutoMark function, watch this video:

http://youtu.be/0HLPOW7LKeo?t=12s

If you need training on Bluebeam Revu, remember you can visit Bluebeam University or if you need more hands on help,
Email me to schedule training in your office.

The post Bluebeam Tip: Searchable Text to AutoMark Your Plan Set appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

1. Elevation views and the area tool (most accurate, most time consuming)
2. Perspective drawing and the volume tool 
3. Perspective drawings and the perimeter tool

With options 2 and 3 there will be further calculations necessary to account for doors and windows.  Knowing that you’ll all want to try these faster options and get more bids completed, I’m providing this handy reference document explaining the process using the Bluebeam Revu Measurement tools.  You can download this free PDF (and yes, you can view it first because I’m using Box.com).  

The 3 Wall Area Measurement Methods for Estimators using Bluebeam Revu

Please share this with other professional estimators and fellow Bluebeamers.  If they aren’t using Bluebeam Revu, share this link to get a 30 day free trial

Disclosure: My firm, Hagen Business Systems Inc is a Silver Level Bluebeam Partner and sells Bluebeam Revu to architects, engineers and contractors throughout the United States.

The post Bluebeam Tip of the Week: 3 Wall Area Measurement Methods for Estimators appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.

Bluebeam Revu keeps a history of each time you change the display.  Revu let’s you navigate or jump between views (from a Construction Plan view to a detail view and back) using the Previous and Next Buttons.  Instead of moving your mouse to the bottom of the screen to click on the Previous or Next Button, save valuable time using these keyboard shortcuts:

Previous View: Alt + Left Arrow Key

Next View: Alt + Right Arrow Key

Now go get ’em Bluebeamers!

The post Bluebeam Revu Tip of the Week: Previous / Next Buttons appeared first on Hagen Business Systems.