Expanded Paste Features

Hi Gillian. Great idea. We'll discuss how to make this work. If it's not too confidential, do you have any screenshots or examples just to make sure we are solving it properly?

So I have multiple tables of data like this that I keep needing to reference as well as drawings on other document pages where I need to consolidate data (e.g. one drawing has case numbers and dimensions, another has lighting and power information).

Thanks for the additional info. 👍🏻

I can see several more use cases where this could be a really nice feature. Details, Notes, and other user media. Good call Gillian.

One more on this idea:

Do you think it would be possible to paste reference links to other pages? For instance, if most of my notes are on a ground plan page, but for certain take-offs in a given area the measurements need to be taken from a detail drawing, would it be possible to make a clickable reference on the ground plan that takes you to the appropriate page (possibly even to a specific area of a page)?

@Gillian, for example if I have a specific detail and I want to "link" a window of that detail on another page...?

Exactly. I've come across this a couple of times with PDF drawings where you get page references for sections and details that actually take you to the page they're referencing if you click on it. Its a real time saver if you have to go back and forth between a few drawings in order to gather all the information you need for a given takeoff.

Yes, we will be adding these hyperlinks. Some PDF files have the data for hyperlinks from the section callouts to the section details (we aren't importing this data yet, but we will soon). If the PDF doesn't have the links already we will be using AI to scan the plans to try to auto-detect them. One interface that a user suggested was to allow you to create bookmarks (on the left, under pages), and then allow you to drag/drop those onto the page wherever you want, and have it create hyperlinks on the page that takes you to the bookmark. Thanks for all the ideas & discussion. Great stuff.

Oh awesome. It would be incredible if AI could do a decent job of detecting and creating them. We routinely have information about an object spread over half a dozen pages. Thanks for making all my takeoff dreams come true!

Funny story—I was helping someone with OST the other day, and they had links all over the place, hopping from page to page like some hidden cheat code. I’ve used OST for years and had no idea that was even a thing! Granted, OST is already dead to me with Zztakeoff, but I still love Bluebeam for navigation. Maybe one day zztakeoff will step up and replace my Bluebeam navigation obsession… but I wouldn’t bet on it for a while 😜.

Those were Hot Links. You can wrap around a single detail or anything else and create a link which you can place anywhere.

I honestly think there is a better way. For example... With AI linking all details on a detail sheet by highlighting a detail on the page and then create all the links... Like we do the pages and names...

Or a whole table / schedule...

If using Takeoffs On Overlays Instead of Pages, the behavior of linking relevant drawings/tables/pages is naturally part of preparing for takeoff. Let’s say you wanted a separate takeoff for framing materials:

1. Create “Framing Materials” overlay

2. Use AI to add relevant drawings/tables/pages to the overlay (or add manually…or both)

Because the overlay acts as a folder of sorts, on the takeoff summary you would see something like:

Framing Materials

—A1.1 First Floor

—A1.2 Framing Details

—S1.1 First Floor Framing

—S1.2 Complicated Holddown Schedule

—S1.3 Header Schedule

Where the visibility, opacity, color, and location of any of the drawings/tables/pages could be toggled or changed however you like and all of your sources are neatly referenced (linked) to your takeoff without actually being on the page.

In effect, this accomplishes what Gillian requested by making multiple relevant tables available in a single view (since the holddown and header schedules are intimately related, yet usually separate).