Creating Visual and Data-Driven Estimates with PDF and CSV Exports from Your Markup Lists

Next, after we've completed adding any different custom columns, now we can start to look at exporting this data into a CSV format as well as a PDF format. So, a couple of different reasons why we would do each of those. The PDF export is going to have some graphics associated with it, so if somebody needs any sort of visual representation or kind of backup of where each of the takeoff items are on the plans and how did we get to the number that we got to, the PDF export is going to be really good for that.

And then for the CSV or Excel file export, that is where we're going to spend a lot of our time in exporting this sheet to a CSV and doing some of the ancillary kind of cost work here to get to our final price that we're going to submit to our client. So, first off, let's go ahead and start with the PDF because that will be kind of the easier of the two and then we will work through our CSV and our Excel sheet. So, to export, we're just going to hit this little summary button which is going to be right next to our filter list button here.

So, let's hit summary and let's go ahead and hit PDF summary. So, when we hit PDF summary, this is the list that comes up and this is going to be really how we control what our export is going to look like. So, first we're going to click over on the left-hand side here into our columns area and in columns this is going to be where we are able to determine which columns that are currently sitting in our markups list will actually get exported out.

So, this is a really good way to if you only want to look at certain things like maybe you only want to look at a certain scope of work for the time being or you only want to look at certain measurements maybe you don't want to see the breakdown of length or area or wall area but maybe you just want to see the high level measurement you could do that. So, this is just an area where you could include or exclude any sort of columns if you don't want to see the layer that you used if you don't want to see the space that you used you could just export those. So, jumping over into the filter and sort area this is something that we are actually going to use right now.

We're going to go into specification section and we are going to filter out any of the blank items here. So, as you may recall when we first opened up this PDF it had a handful of other markups that were already on it and we don't want to mess with them those came from the Revit file where this was designed. One of the reasons why we use specification section as a custom column that we filled in was so that when we went to export everything now we could choose from only the markups that we want and those are the markups that fall under some of these specification sections.

So, we've excluded the blank ones that we don't want the rest of the list is checked off and that is exactly what we want to see on this PDF. The other thing that could be helpful here is maybe like author for example if you have multiple people who are working on different portions of a takeoff and maybe you only want to see your items. So, oftentimes estimating teams will break up responsibility by different parts of a building.

So, you may have an estimator that's working on the exterior of the building, you may have someone that's working on the structure, you may have someone that's working on the interior of the building, someone that's working on MEPs. So, you do have the ability for all of those folks to collaborate in here and if you did want to sort by who made which markups you could easily do that with that author drop down. So, same goes for any of these other ones if we did want to filter and sort by them we could but all we're going to do is just keep the specification section and the author filter on there.

Lastly, we've got the output section. The output is just where we confirm some specifics about how this is going to look after we export it. So, of course we could change the file format here.

We're going to start off with PDF so we can see what that looks like. We're also going to be able to see CSV later on and we're going to export this put this into Excel and that's where we're really going to start to do some work to come up with our finalized format that we are going to submit to our client. So, export to this is just going to be the file path of where it's going to live on my computer.

The title it's just going to be the name of PDF. Jumping down here to template there is going to be a capability for you to upload your own templates in here. Not anything that we are going to do today but you certainly have the ability to import a kind of template that you want your export to look like and it can be living in here saved in here so that every time you export a PDF it will be within your own template format.

Insert page break per specification section. We are going to do that so that our report is kind of delineated by different spec sections. Style.

We've got two different options here. Flow is going to be where the information cascades from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. So, you're kind of reading from top to bottom to see info.

Table is where the information is going to be more of like a left to right in like a data table. We're going to do flow for the purposes of this exercise today. Thumbnail.

This is actually going to be a thumbnail of your measurements and your takeoffs from the plan. Almost like a little screen grab of those items that's going to be next to the actual quantity of the takeoff. So, let's go ahead and put this at medium so we have a big enough size for us to be able to see what it is that we've just taken off.

And we look to be in pretty good shape here before we export this. Let's just do a final review. Another thing to note up at the top right here is there is a pages drop down and you could select pages.

So, you could just do a range of pages. Again, if you're only working off of certain sets of plans and you're not doing a takeoff of the entire set, you could limit the summary of markups that you're exporting here. So, for now, let's just go ahead and hit OK and let our PDF get exported.

So, as we hit OK, you can see that it is starting to process. And it will take a little bit of time to process, but it should not be too long. We have 138 items.

So, it's substantial, but it's nothing too crazy that we think would slow down the system at all. Looks like we are just about finishing up right now. Great.

As we can see, another tab has been opened within our existing Bluebeam and it has created our markup summary for us. Now, looking at our markup summary, we can see what it shows us. So, first, you can see up at the top, I'm going to use my highlighter here just to call some things out.

Up at the top here, we can see that it shows my spec section. In my spec section, I can see that it shows all of my different measurement types. So, I have length, area, wall area, and volume.

These columns are things that you can configure when you're doing the export. So, if you don't want to see all of these different length, area, wall area, volume, and you just want the total measurement in cubic yards of structural concrete, you can certainly do that by just turning the other columns off. And that is something we're going to do when we go to export to CSV, so that we're only using our kind of one combined total measurement.

But for the purposes of this PDF export, I wanted to leave all of the columns on there, just so you can see the options that you have when you do produce this export. Jumping down to a specific line item, we can see all of the different columns that were in our markups list. Again, these you can turn on or off, so that they will or will not show up depending on what you're looking for.

And also, on the left-hand side, you're going to see that little thumbnail that we were referencing. So, this shows you exactly where on the plan this takeoff occurred. And there's also going to be some other helpful info, like the page label, too.

Really, really easy for us to say that, oh yes, our continuous concrete footing that's under spec section, this has a cubic yardage of 5.96, and this is where it's located down in the foundation of the building. So, that's just going to be a quick review of an example of a section in this report. Now, the whole report is going to follow this same kind of pathway here.

So, as we kind of go to a new page break, that page break is going to indicate that we are now on a new specification section. This is going to kind of collate all of our takeoffs for a certain, under a certain specification section, and it's really going to put them all in this kind of summary area for me to review. This particular one only has one takeoff, so all of the totals that you see up here are the same as each of the individual line items.

So, for our measurement total, we can see 87.9959 square foot, and, or just feet, sorry, and then when you go down to measurement for the individual one, you can see that same figure, but let's scroll down a bit more to something like one of our wood items, wood framing, for example. With wood framing, you can see that we have 25 takeoffs that make up this area, and these are going to be all of our totals. So, all of our length measurements are going to be 834 feet, all of our area measurements are going to be this amount of square footage, and all of our wall area is going to be this amount of square footage.

Now, we do have this wood framing covering, this spec section is covering a lot of different takeoffs, so as we get into our CSV and we start to massage this estimate a little bit, we're definitely going to start breaking this up into exterior framing, interior framing, any other specific items here, so we can really start to get kind of more granular and specific about the different costs of the different types of material. So, that's just a kind of a foreshadowing of what we're going to do when we export this thing to Excel, but really just wanted to give a high-level understanding of what this PDF export looked like, so I'm just kind of scrolling down here. Let's go down and towards the bottom and just pick a section back there.

Electrical or plumbing fixtures, we can see we've got our counts, and again, it's just showing us the fixture on the plan and the count of it. This PDF export is a really good backup for you to be able to, as you're kind of going through and reviewing your estimate, this is also a really good reminder of, okay, sheet carpeting, where was the sheet carpeting, and you can also see visually like, all right, did I include sheet carpeting in all of the areas that I should have. So, that's really helpful just to make sure from like a comprehensiveness standpoint.

So, carpeting, you can see we did the main room down here, we did the little strip at the sliding door here, and we did the closet right here to get us to a total square footage measurement of 318.48. That's just a quick cursory review of our PDF summary export. This is sometimes something that you would submit to the client, other times this is a little bit too granular for them, and you don't need to show them all the detail, but you have the ability to do this, and you guys know now how to do it.