Taking off
Mark up a drawing
Notes, clouds and comments on the sheet, and the controls around the canvas.
Markup is not measurement
Measurements produce quantities and money. Markup produces notes: the cloud around the bit that does not add up, the arrow at the riser, the text that says “assumed”. Markup does not change a single number, which is exactly why it is safe to scribble.
Both end up on the same sheet, and both go out on a shared link or an exported PDF.
The tools down the right
Pen and Highlighter are freehand. Arc and Polyline draw lines properly, and Shapes holds the rest: squares, circles, arrows, angles and the revision cloud. Text and Callout add words, with a callout being the one that points at something. Ruler (annotation) puts a dimension on the sheet as a note, without creating a measurement. Image (or paste) drops in a photo or anything on your clipboard, which is how a site photo ends up beside the detail it belongs to.
Comment is different from all of those: it starts a conversation rather than a drawing. See below.
Clean up plan erases markup that came in on the original drawing, which is worth knowing about when a consultant has already scribbled over the sheet you were sent.
The whole toolbar can be moved if it is sitting over something you need to see.
The controls under the drawing
Fit to screen, zoom in and out, and a percentage menu with preset zoom levels. Rotate view left and right turn the sheet without changing anything on it, and Reset view puts everything back.
The magnet snaps to plan objects such as walls, lines and corners, and to your own measurements. Keep it on for accurate work on a PDF exported from CAD.
Colours hides or isolates one colour, which is the quickest way to see only the service you are working on. Place a legend on this plan stamps a legend of what your colours mean onto the sheet, ready to send.
Enlarge & re-position a region blows a section of the drawing up in place. Snip a region into a new plan turns part of a sheet into a plan of its own, which is how you take off a detail without fighting the rest of the page.
Selecting things
The editor’s own tip covers this better than a paragraph can: “Shift-drag across empty canvas to lasso-select (a plain drag pans); Ctrl / Cmd-click adds or removes individual items.” Select text in the top toolbar is separate again: it drags across the drawing’s own text so you can copy it, rather than selecting your work.
Comments and queries
A comment is pinned to a spot on the drawing and can be replied to, so a question about a detail lives next to the detail. The control at the bottom of the canvas reads and replies to the comments on the plan you have open.
Across the whole job, every comment and query is gathered under Reviews in the project’s side list, on a page headed Reviews and RFIs, split into active, resolved and all. That is where you go to see what is still outstanding, rather than opening each sheet.
When a sheet is done
Choose Mark plan checked in the toolbar. The plan counts as complete on the plans tab and in the project’s contents, so a big job shows you how much is left.
Details beside it opens the plan’s own information, and Share goes straight to sharing the marked plans. See share a project.
Things Tally wants you to look at
Where Tally inferred something, or hit the limit of what it could measure, it flags it rather than hiding it. Those flags gather on the project’s Flagged items page, one card each, offering only the actions that are safe for that item.
Next
The editor is faster on a keyboard. See keyboard shortcuts.