Takeoff: calibrate, measure, name sheets
Calibrate scale, measure length/area/count, then Auto Name sheets from the title block. Find similar can propose count, length, or area — you confirm. Assist suggests a tool; it never draws the sheet. Quantities push to the estimate when you are ready.
1. Open takeoff on a job
From a job, open Takeoff (or /takeoff with the job selected). Add PDF or image sheets — up to 100 MB per file; no plans handy? Try a sample sheet on the empty desk puts a seven-page residential set on the job to draw on, already scaled (it never counts against a trial); a big set uploads in chunks with a progress bar and resumes if the connection drops, so keep the tab open. A dense sheet appears first as a soft preview and sharpens in steps from the middle of your view outward; measure as soon as you can read it. Scale lock stays until you recalibrate.
Open Takeoff →2. Calibrate, then measure
Set scale from a known dimension. When the sheet prints its scale in the title block, the scale menu offers it — one click, still yours to confirm. When it says "as indicated", draw a scale zone around the view you are measuring (scale menu → Draw a scale zone…) — shapes inside use that view's scale, and Calibrate inside the zone calibrates the zone. Snap, Ortho and Grid sit in the strip above the sheet (S, F8); the tool keys are docked under it, and ? opens the full keyboard sheet. Open Presets (T), type a trade or a preset — gwb, conduit, footing — and pick: the tool and the assembly are set, you still draw every quantity. Press L, A or C (or a rail tool) and the desk asks first — name, category, color, the dimensions the type can use, an assembly or a price — Enter starts and every shape you draw next joins that line until Esc; Skip draws with a minted name, and the ask turns off in the same dialog if you would rather draw first. The color is any you like, wherever a line's color is chosen: the quick sixteen, More for every hue by shade and the greys, Any color for the browser's own picker, or a hex you type. Draw length, area, or count. Find similar proposes repeats of the seed you drew — confirm writes ordinary measurements. With the area tool on a vector PDF, Suggest rooms proposes the regions the sheet’s own lines close — click each room you want, then Confirm; Alt-click inside one room to propose just that one; each room you pick shows the square feet Confirm will write, so you can read it against the room size printed on the plan before you keep it; on a calibrated sheet a doorway is closed jamb to jamb, along both faces of the wall with the door's swing left as floor, and each place the desk closed a room is drawn dashed; any other gap in a wall is left as a gap, and a scan gets no guess. Height, waste, and a note ("verify with sub") live on the item — bulk-apply from the ribbon when several items share the same factor. In Takeoff Properties an area takes a pitch (rise over 12) and shows the sloped area beside the plan area; a sitework area or trench takes a depth and shows cubic yards; a framing area takes a spacing and a run and shows the members counted across it — the quantity on the sheet stays what you drew, and assemblies can price from {slopedSf}, {volumeCy}, {members} and {memberFt}. When a line is done, lock it from its row menu (⋯ → Lock this line): it wears a padlock with your name and the time, a move, an erase or an edit waits for the unlock — the toast says who holds it — and it still shows, exports, prints and pushes; every shape also carries who drew or last edited it, in Takeoff Properties. Two of you on one takeoff see each other's cursor on the sheet, name-tagged, and the shapes the other holds selected in their color — off while you are in Focus digitizing unless you turn it on from its toolbar.
Measure →3. Auto Name the set
Pages → Rename all. Draw Sheet No and Sheet Title regions. Text layer runs first; OCR fills empty regions. Review the before→after matrix, then apply. Nothing overwrites until you confirm.
Rename sheets →4. Work the quantities like a set of sheets
The Quantities panel groups by sheet, by category, by area, or consolidated across the set — the same line item on three pages is one row with a caret that opens its per-sheet rows. The Eye hides a line on the plan (hidden rows stay in the list and the estimate; ⇧H hides the selection, ⇧I isolates it, ⇧U shows everything), and EST is the separate switch for the estimate. Areas are a level, wing or phase you name yourself: ⇧A picks the area for the next shapes you draw, the Area chip moves a line, and By area gives you totals per level. Save a configured line as an item (row menu → Save as item…) and it lives in the palette (T) under My items for every job — pick it and draw. Drag a row onto a category or area folder to move it there (⌘Z puts it back); a consolidated line's Erase all asks first. The gear's Outputs switches decide whether hidden lines go into the export and the report, and whether a push writes one line per area. On a wall, Openings in Properties deducts doors and windows so the row, the report and the export show net SF beside gross. Choose the columns you want with the gear, sort inside every folder, and the report and Excel export follow the grouping you are looking at. A price or a waste typed in Takeoff Properties is the line's: every mark of a count and every run of a wall takes it, one Undo takes it back from all of them, and the push writes the line once at that price. Push to estimate puts the lines on the job estimate; push again after a re-measure and the desk shows each line as it is and as it would be — the change, the price move, the shapes that came and went — and Apply moves the changed lines in place, adds the new and removes the gone, with Undo; lines typed on the estimate are never touched. An Excel import asks the same way before it writes a quantity.
Open Quantities →Evaluate on one job — 14 days free, no credit card. Try the product · For subcontractors
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