Tour of the editor

The editor has five areas. Once you can name them, the rest of this documentation is much easier to follow.

Area	Where	What it is for
Top bar	Above the drawing	Scale, quality, and the Summary, Import, Export, Save and Clear All actions
Toolbar	Left edge	Choosing a tool
Canvas	Centre	The drawing, and where you take off
Canvas view controls	Over the canvas	How the drawing is displayed, and fill options
Right panel	Right side	The new region form, work in progress, borders, markups, zones and saved layers

First open

The first time a drawing opens, a short guided tour spotlights the scale control, the units and region settings, and the Layer Manager, in that order. If the drawing set already has layers saved, finishing the tour offers to import them. Follow it or dismiss it; everything it points at is covered on this page.

First time in the editor, in Getting started

The top bar

The bar across the top of the drawing splits in two. On the left are the two settings that belong to this drawing, Scale and Quality. On the right are the actions: Summary, Import, Export, Save and Clear All.

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Scale

The Scale chip shows the drawing’s scale, 1:100 for example, or Not Set until you give it one. Two buttons sit beside the value:

	Button	What it does
	Set Scale	Opens the Drawing scale dialog, where you pick a known scale
	Calibrate Scale	Measures a known dimension on the drawing and works the scale out from it

Scale is per drawing, not per project, so each new sheet needs its own. Nothing can be measured until it is set, which is why the tour points at it first.

Setting the drawing scale

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Quality

Quality controls how much detail the drawing is displayed with. Click the chip to change it:

	Setting	Best for
	Optimal	Fast processing. Large or simple sheets where you are not clicking small targets
	Balanced	The default, and the right answer for most drawings
	High	Maximum precision. Dense sheets, fine hatching, small text

Quality changes what you can see and how accurately you can click. It does not change your quantities, which come from the scale.

Finish what you are drawing first

Changing quality reloads the drawing. Your takeoff is kept and comes back with it, but anything you are part way through drawing is dropped, and undo history is cleared. Complete or cancel the shape in your hand before you switch.

Settings holds the default that every new drawing opens at, and the chip here overrides it for the drawing you are working on.

Quality in Settings

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Saved

Once a drawing has been saved, a green Saved chip appears with the time. The editor also saves on its own about once a minute whenever there is something new to save, so that time keeps moving without you touching anything.

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Actions

	Action	What it does
	Summary	Opens the takeoff summary, every group and its total. Reads Edit Summary once the table is pinned to the drawing
	Import	Opens the Import dialog for a .ptw workspace or workbundle file. Drag the file onto the dialog or use Browse Files
	Export	Opens the Export dialog, with a tab for the current drawing and a tab for the drawing set
	Save	Saves now rather than waiting for the next automatic save. Reads Saving… while it runs
	Clear All	Empties the canvas. Asks before it does anything

Clear All is not an undo

It removes every region, markup, border and zone from the canvas, and tells you how many of each before you confirm. Saved layers stay, but as empty groups, so you keep the structure of the takeoff and lose the takeoff itself. Reach for Undo or a group’s own undo instead unless you genuinely want to start the sheet again.

Summary and exportUndo and redo

The bar shortens itself

When the window is narrow, or the right panel is wide, the bar drops its labels to stay on one row. The buttons become icons, the word Scale and the quality setting’s name disappear, and the Saved chip shrinks to a tick.

Nothing has moved or been turned off. Hover anything you cannot place and its name appears, and the labels come back when there is room.

The toolbar

The left edge is divided into sections, top to bottom, with dividers between them. Every tool has a single-key shortcut, shown in brackets below and in the tooltip when you hover. The icons are the ones on your screen, so you can match this page to the toolbar directly.

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Area tools

The first section is the eight area tools:

	Tool	Key	What it is for
	Region	R	Click once inside an enclosed area and it fills to the boundary and measures it. At its best on a plain area of solid colour with a clean edge around it
	Expand Region	X	Grows a fill outward, click by click. Reaches past the light linework inside a hatch and stops at the solid edge around it, so a hatched or textured area comes out whole instead of in strips
	Precision Region	P	For areas that will not come out cleanly because the drawing puts several materials in near identical tones. Slower per area, but you decide what is in and what is out
	Shape	S	You draw the area, as a box, circle, ellipse, polygon or brush stroke. The answer when the drawing has no boundary to find, or when you are pricing an allowance
	Color Sweep	D	Takes off every area sharing one colour in a single action. Made for drawings that use a consistent fill colour per material, where clicking them one by one would take all morning
	Inclusive Region	I	You pick which colours count as part of the area, then one click takes off everything made of them. For areas drawn in several colours at once. Keep the boundary colour off the list or the fill runs straight through it
	Free Trace	F	Draw the boundary by hand. The fallback for a shape nothing automatic can follow, and for scans too soft to read reliably
	Color Filter	Q	Draw a polygon, then keep only the colours you choose inside it. For areas where the material shares its space with linework, text or other colours

Area takeoff guide

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Manual Border

Manual Border (B) closes gaps in a boundary so a fill stays contained.

Manual borders guide

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Eraser

The Eraser (E) expands when selected into its twelve modes, in two families either side of the divider: the seven shape modes above it, and the five region modes below.

Shape modes, for erasing inside a shape you draw:

	Mode	Key	What it does
	Polygon	1	Erases an irregular area, clicked corner by corner
	Drag Box	2	Erases a rectangular strip or block, sized by dragging
	Box	3	Erases a fixed square, good for repeated removals of one size
	Drag Circle	4	Erases a circle you size by dragging
	Circle	5	Erases a fixed circle, good for repeated small removals
	Brush	6	Paints away freehand, for fiddly edges
	Ellipse	7	Erases an elliptical opening

Region modes, for erasing a detected area without tracing it:

	Mode	Key	What it does
	Region	⇧R	Removes a whole detected area in one click
	Sweep	⇧S	Removes along a swept path
	Multi	⇧M	Removes several detected areas in one action
	Expand	⇧X	Removes an area and grows outward from it
	Free Trace	⇧F	Traces the outline of what to remove

Eraser guide

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Linear Region

Linear Region (L) expands when selected into three subsections: the four drawing modes you drive yourself (Polyline, Dashed Trace, Freehand Trace, Ellipse), the three automatic modes that follow the drawing for you (Dot Trace, Auto Boundary, Auto Line), and the Cut tool at the bottom for removing a section from a run.

	Mode	Key	Section	What it does
	Polyline	1	Drawing modes	Straight runs with corners, clicked one corner at a time
	Dashed Trace	2	Drawing modes	Follows a line that is dashed or broken on the drawing
	Freehand Trace	3	Drawing modes	Draws the path yourself by dragging
	Ellipse	4	Drawing modes	Circular and elliptical runs
	Dot Trace	5	Automatic modes	Place points along a route and the line between them is followed for you
	Auto Boundary	6	Automatic modes	Follows the edge of an area automatically
	Auto Line	7	Automatic modes	Follows a drawn line automatically
	Cut	C	Cut	Removes a section from the middle of a run

Linear takeoff guide

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Counting

	Tool	Key	What it does
	Count	C	Places a numbered marker on each item you click
	Auto Count	A	Finds every instance of a symbol from one example

Counting guide

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Magnifier, Measure Width and Markup

	Tool	Key	What it does
	Magnifier	H	Magnifies the area under your cursor for precise clicking
	Measure Width	W	Checks a distance without recording anything
	Markup	M	Annotates the drawing: notes, clouds, callouts, highlights. Never measured

Canvas aids guideMarkup guide

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Find Pattern and Inspect

	Tool	Key	What it does
	Find Pattern	G	Highlights every place a detail or arrangement appears
	Inspect	V	Selects without drawing, the safe tool while reviewing

Find Pattern guide

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Zone

Zone (Z) scopes a takeoff to part of the sheet, such as one phase.

Zones guide

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Drawing navigator

The last button, Drawing Navigator (N), opens the list of drawings in the current set, so you can switch sheets without leaving the editor. Search by name, and sort by Custom order, Date Added or Modified, the same three orderings as the Projects page. Esc closes it. Each entry carries the same takeoff badge as the Projects page cards, so you can see which sheets already have work on them without opening them. Each drawing in the list can also be opened as a reference window, a second window showing its finished takeoff sheet for side by side comparison.

Stepping through sheets. The arrows at the top right of the editor move to the previous or next drawing, showing your position in the set as 3 / 12. Hovering an arrow names the sheet it would open. They follow the navigator’s sort, so sorting by Modified steps through in that order.

Alt + ← and Alt + → (Option on a Mac) do the same from the keyboard, as do PageUp and PageDown.

Open as reference

The canvas

The drawing itself, and where all takeoff happens.

The sheet sits on the canvas as a page with a soft shadow around it, so the edge of the drawing is clear even on a plan with no printed border. Takeoff only happens on the page: clicking outside it tells you the click was not in the takeoff range rather than placing anything there.

• Pan: drag with the middle mouse button. This works whichever tool is selected, so you can move around without switching away from what you are doing. With the Left-click drag pan canvas aid turned on, dragging with the left button also pans when you are not mid drawing.
• Zoom: scroll wheel.
• Fit to Screen: returns the whole sheet to view when you have lost your bearings.

Middle button drag is the one worth building the habit around, since it never conflicts with the tool in your hand.

The Canvas Aids chip in the status bar along the bottom holds three helpers for working on the canvas: the always-on Magnifier, Left-click drag pan and the Full-screen crosshair.

Canvas aids guide

Zoom in before clicking on anything tight. Accuracy of your clicks carries straight into the quantities.

Canvas view controls

These sit over the canvas and change how the drawing is displayed or how fills behave. They do not change any quantity you have already measured.

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Display

	Control	Key	What it does
	Fit to Screen	Ctrl + 1	Returns the whole sheet to view
	TakeOff View	Ctrl + 2	Shows your takeoff over the drawing, the normal working view
	3D View	Ctrl + 3	Shows the takeoff as a three dimensional plan, using the depths you have set. Good for sanity checking volumes and showing a client
	Hawk View	Ctrl + 4	Whites out everything already taken off, so what still needs measuring stands out. The quickest way to spot leftovers before you finish a sheet
	Crisp	Ctrl + 5	Sharpens the drawing so fine lines and small text are easier to read. Useful on dense sheets and soft scans
	Hueprint	Ctrl + 6	Re-presents the drawing so different elements are easier to tell apart and select. Most effective where materials are hard to distinguish by eye
	Boundary	Ctrl + B	Restricts a fill so it respects the boundary you are working within

Note

If a control is greyed out with “Not available for this drawing”, that feature does not apply to this sheet.

The Hueprint workflow

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Batch Takeoff

Three buttons in the canvas controls take off many areas in one action instead of one click at a time. They need a region tool selected to be available, and each uses that tool’s settings for every fill.

	Mode	Key	What it does
	Multi	J	One region per dot you place
	Merge	K	One combined region from all the dots
	Unmerge	U	A separate region for each piece the dots run across

How to use Batch Takeoff

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Fill options

These change how the next fill behaves. Set them before you click, not after.

	Option	Key	What it does
	Solid Fill	⇧S	Closes the area up to its perimeter, for areas defined by an outline rather than a solid fill
	Seal Gaps	⇧G	Tidies an area whose outline has hairline breaks, without closing off openings that belong there. Use it when a fill comes out fragmented
	Bounding Box Fill	⇧P	Fills the rectangle enclosing what you selected, for an area that should be measured as a rectangle even though it is drawn irregularly
	Door-aware Fill	⇧D	Keeps a fill from escaping through door openings, for room by room takeoff on floor plans
	Color Lock		The first point you place sets the colour. Any later point sitting on a different colour is skipped, so one action does not pick up two materials

The right panel

The panel runs top to bottom in the order you work: the new region form, then Work in Progress, then the Manual Borders, Markups and Zones sections, and finally Layers, your saved work.

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The new region form

Above the form sits the Layer Manager button, where you plan the job’s quantity layers before you measure and share them across the drawing set.

Layer Manager guide

The tabs at the top, Area, Linear and Count, choose what you are about to measure, with the name, the colour swatch and the Measurement Settings gear beneath.

Setting up a new region

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Work in progress

New takeoff appears here first. Think of it as your working area: it is yours to adjust freely before you commit it. The heading counts what is in progress, and groups sit under a heading per kind: Area, Linear Regions and Count Markers. Each group shows its name, its colour, how many items it contains and its running total, and expands to show the individual items.

The group header carries the group actions, the same for all three kinds:

	Action	What it does
	Save Group	Commits the group into saved layers
	Delete Group	Removes the group and its regions
↶	Undo	Steps back through operations on this group alone, so you can back out a bad erase on one material without disturbing anything else
↷	Redo	Steps forward again
	Sort regions	Changes the order regions are listed in
	Edit Settings	Opens the group’s measurement settings, depth, perimeter and the rest. For area and linear groups it appears once a region is selected; for count groups it is always available

Below the total, three buttons manage the selection and visibility:

	Action	What it does
	Select All	Selects every region in the group; click again to deselect
	Clear All	Clears the current selection
	Hide All	Takes the group out of view and out of the totals; click again to unhide

With regions selected, the selection actions appear:

	Action	What it does
	Combine Selected	Merges the selected regions into one, keeping the total
	Duplicate Selected	Copies the selected regions, for repeated identical items

Each region row also has its own show or hide toggle, delete button, and a tick box for selections.

When a group is right, save it. It moves down into saved layers.

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Actions on a single region

Every region row carries its own set of refinement actions, and they are where a good takeoff gets polished. For an area region:

	Action	What it does
	Seal Gaps	Refills the region with hairline breaks in its boundary sealed, so a fragmented fill comes back as one clean area
	Fill Holes	Fills the holes inside the region so they count in the area
	Extract Holes	The reverse: takes the holes back out of the region
	Preview Perimeter	Highlights the measured perimeter on the drawing, so you can see exactly what Pₙ, Pₑ and Pᵥ trace
	Boundary Adjust	Expands or contracts the measured edge, targeting the Boundary, the Cutouts or both
	Filter colors	Opens the Color Filter window on the region, dropping colours that should not have been included
	3D Volume Preview	Shows this region in three dimensions using its depth
	Uncombine	Splits a combined region back into its original parts

A region drawn as a polygon also offers Reshape Polygon, dragging its points to adjust the outline.

A linear region row shows a small picture of the run and its length, and has Edit Region, which reopens the line so you can move points, add corners and adjust branches.

A count group lists its markers by number with their positions, each with its own show or hide and delete. The group’s buttons cover hiding all markers, erasing, and editing the marker settings.

These are re-runnable and safe to experiment with, and the group’s ↶ Undo steps back through anything you do here. A dedicated page walking through each of these in depth is on its way; until then the essentials are covered in the groups guide.

Groups, work in progress and saved layers

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Manual Borders

Every border you have drawn is listed with its number of points. Delete one with its ✕, or all of them with the trash button, once a drawing no longer needs them.

Manual borders guide

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Markups

Every annotation is listed with its name, its kind and its line thickness. Delete one with its ✕, or clear them all with the trash button.

Markup guide

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Zones

Zones you have drawn get their own section, listing each zone so you can find it, open its quantities or remove it.

Zones guide

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Layers

Committed takeoff, protected from the eraser and the editing tools until Edit Group reopens it. Work in progress and saved layers both count in totals and exports; saving is about protecting finished work, not about inclusion.

	Action	What it does
	Edit Group	Reopens a group to change its name, colour or settings
	Hide	Takes a layer out of the view and out of the totals, a quick way to check one material on its own
	Delete	Removes the layer. Use deliberately, this is committed work
	Sort	Changes the order layers are listed in

Drag to reorder changes the order layers are drawn and listed in, which matters when regions overlap visually and on the exported sheet.

Region Settings

The sliders button at the top of the right panel opens Region Settings: Unit System, Region Opacity, Color Tolerance and Max Pixels for this drawing. The same settings also exist globally in Settings, as the defaults every new drawing starts from, and the values you set here override them for the drawing you are working on.

Region Settings: every setting, defaults, and global versus per-drawing

Status and progress

Long operations show progress, and some can be cancelled while they run. If a drawing is large, the first open takes longest and later opens are quicker.

Where to go next

Area takeoffLinear takeoffSetting the drawing scale