How to do a QS take-off from a PDF drawing

A take-off is the measured schedule you produce from a drawing before anything can be priced: every area, length and count a trade will be paid for. This guide walks through doing one from a PDF, from setting the scale to a CSV you can price in Excel. It assumes you've not used the app before.

1. What a PDF take-off is

Takeoff turns a PDF layout drawing into a measurable, auditable set of quantities. Every measurement becomes a tagged markup with quantity, unit, trade and any custom column you need. The result exports cleanly to CSV for pricing in Excel.

The point of doing it this way rather than with a scale rule is that each figure stays attached to the thing on the drawing it came from - so when a revision lands, or someone queries a number, you can see exactly what was measured. For how those figures are produced and what can go wrong with them, see measurement accuracy.

2. Opening a PDF drawing

Loading the file

From inside the app, click Open PDF in the header (or drag a PDF file onto the window). Multi-page PDFs are supported - use the page arrows in the header. Calibrations are stored per page.

The interface

3. Setting the scale on a PDF drawing (calibration)

Calibration tells the app how to convert PDF coordinates into real-world units for the current page. Without it, measurements show as raw PDF points (pt).

Method 1 - Click against a known dimension

1. Pick the Calibrate tool from the left panel.
2. Click one end of a printed dimension. Move to the other end and click again. Snap-to-geometry locks onto witness lines for accuracy.
3. Enter the real distance and unit (m / mm / ft / in) in the dialog and press Apply.

Method 2 - Set a 1:n drawing scale

If the drawing is published at a known scale and hasn't been resized, click Set drawing scale (1:n) in the calibration status box. Enter the ratio, the paper unit (mm or in) and the real-world unit you want to work in.

4. Measuring areas, lengths and counts

All measurement tools share the same drawing pattern: click points, then finish with double-click or Enter. Press Esc to cancel; Backspace to undo the last vertex.

5. Measuring accurately with snap-to-geometry

Snap dramatically improves accuracy by locking the cursor to features extracted from the PDF's vector content. It's on by default - toggle in the left panel under Snap.

Snap engages within ~10 screen pixels of a target. Hold Shift to bypass momentarily. Snap is active for Calibrate, Length, Perimeter, Area and Rectangle. It's disabled for Select and Count to keep free placement.

6. Working in mm, m and m² (display units)

Every length / area markup carries its own display unit. You can mix freely on the same drawing - measure window widths in mm while keeping floor areas in m².

Per-tool defaults

The Default units section of the sidebar has four selectors - one for each measurement tool. New markups inherit the current default for their tool.

Per-markup override

Select a markup, switch to the Properties tab, and pick a different unit from the dropdown. The label on the drawing, list row and totals all update.

7. Building your quantities (the markups list)

The Markups List is the take-off schedule attached to the drawing.

Filtering, totals, custom columns

• Type in the filter box - matches subject, trade, location, notes, type and page.
• Switch the page filter between All pages and Current page.
• Below the list, totals are grouped by unit - combine the filter and page filter to total just one trade or one floor.
• Add custom columns (SOR Code, Rate, Status...) from the Properties panel - they show up on every markup and in the CSV export.

8. Tagging measurements by trade and element

Switch to Properties to edit the selected markup. Changes apply immediately to the drawing label, list row and totals. Editable fields: subject, colour, trade, location, unit (length / area markups), notes, custom fields. The quantity is computed and read-only.

9. Saving and reopening a take-off

Click Save to cloud in the header to store the current take-off against your account. The first save asks for a project name; subsequent saves overwrite. Click My projects to load any project back.

The PDF itself is not uploaded - only the take-off data (calibrations, markups, custom columns, defaults). To resume a project, re-open the original PDF locally and load the saved markups on top.

From your account dashboard you can see all saved projects, their sizes and last-update times, and delete projects you no longer need.

10. Keyboard shortcuts

11. Tips and troubleshooting

• Set Subject + Colour before measuring. The Markups List becomes far more useful when items are tagged consistently.
• Use Trade and Location. They're the easiest filters in the list when generating sub-totals for tender packages.
• Add a Rate custom column if you want to export estimating-ready CSV (Excel will compute total = qty × rate).
• Calibrate against the longest available dimension. Longer reference distances dilute pixel-level slip.
• Save often (Ctrl/Cmd + S). The browser will warn you about unsaved changes, but a saved project is the only safe state.