The basics of Bluebeam - Bluebeam Tutorial

- [Instructor] Before I dive into all of the features that this software has to offer, I want to spend a few minutes talking about the concept and the benefit of using Bluebeam Revu as your default, go to PDF program. And this does bring me to an important point. At its core, Bluebeam really is just a PDF program. Now most of us have all accessed a PDF file a few times in our careers. Maybe you've used one of the free PDF reader programs that are available, like Adobe Reader, or maybe you've used one of the PDF editing programs like Adobe Acrobat, that allows you to markup and add comments to a PDF document. But Bluebeam Revu really builds on those basic functions that you may have used in the past by adding tool sets that are specific to and very useful for managing construction projects. So this includes features that allows us to view and manipulate large sets of 2D and 3D drawings, tools that allow us to estimate quantities, lengths, and volumes, and even tools that allow us to sketch up new details or add redline markups directly to a set of drawings. All of this can be done directly from within Bluebeam Revu, without the need for any additional software or skills. Even the commenting and markup features can be tailored to work the way we're used to seeing things marked up in the construction industry. So to give you an idea of what I mean by that, take a look at this markup tool up at the top of the page. The one that when I hover over it, says cloud plus. If I click on that, I get a tool that in one click, I can box, cloud, and comment on any item in a set of construction drawings, marking this up in a way that I'm used to seeing things marked up in the construction industry as opposed to maybe just basic PDF functions that would allow me to highlight this or circle it. I can actually cloud and comment it like we do all the time. So, while Bluebeam can open up all PDF files, regardless of what program created them, I will say that all PDF files are not created equal. So markups and comments added to a PDF by users that are using a different software program should still be visible here in Bluebeam, but one of the things that's unique to Bluebeam is its markup log. So I want to take a look at that. If we go to the bottom of the screen in the lower left corner, if I hover over that icon, you'll see it says markups. And when I click on it, I get a panel that opens up at the bottom of the screen and you'll see that that cloud plus markup tool that I just used and the text that I typed in, which was just comment, are tracked down here in the markup list. And it also notes who made the markup, the date of the markup, I can set a status, I can change the color of a markup, all sorts of things that I can do here with markups on the plan sheets that are tracked down here in the markup list. And we'll look at this more throughout the course. Now in addition, Bluebeam also contains some collaboration features called Bluebeam Studio, that can only be accessed using one of the versions of the Bluebeam software. So let's take a look at that. We're going to go ahead and collapse the markup list panel and over on the left side of the screen, I'm going to open the Bluebeam Studio panel. And, you'll see here that I have a bunch of projects stored in Bluebeam studio, and these are all projects that I can share with other people. And, when I share them with other people, let's go ahead and click on one of my sample projects here. When I share them with other people, they'll see all of these shared files and they'll be able to access the shared set of documents, mark them up, create comments and everything just like I showed you on the screen. And in fact, even users of the free version of Bluebeam Revu can create markups if they're invited to as part of what's called a Bluebeam session, which is one of Bluebeam's collaboration features, again, that I'll show you a little bit later in the course. Now a couple other things that are very unique to Bluebeam and its PDF functionality. Let's go ahead and close some of these panels so we declutter the screen a little bit. Bluebeam allows us to have multiple items open and we can view all those items in a tabbed view across the top of the screen. Bluebeam also has a file access tab on the left side of the screen that allows us to see all of our recently opened and accessed files. And, there's a thumbnails tab that allows us to quickly jump to any sheet within our drawings set and we can see if a measurement scale's been set on those sheets, we can see the sheet number or the name of those sheets. Again, these are all just features that make Bluebeam a really handy PDF program for anybody in the AEC industry. That's the Architectural Engineering or Construction industry. One more thing I want to show you before we close out of this video is the ability to view drawings in a split screen view. So, if I come up here and click on the view tab at the top of the page and click on either split horizontal or split vertical, we'll go ahead and split vertical, and then we'll collapse this window so we get a better view, I can now actually look at two sheets within my construction drawings set at the same time, kind of look at the FLS plans over top of the finish schedule. And I can actually split this screen as many times as I want, these drawings will get smaller and smaller. But again, this ability to view two or more different sheets within your construction drawings set at the same time are just one more thing that makes Bluebeam Revu really a great default PDF program for the AEC industry. Now a lot of these are features that are contained in all versions of Bluebeam Revu, whether it's the paid or free versions, but they're not found in other PDF programs. So that's why it's my opinion that it really works best if Bluebeam becomes your company's default PDF software used throughout your entire organization or your project team. Again, you can use it to open, view, and edit any PDF file created using any other program, but when we do use Bluebeam as our default viewer, we get access to all of these other tool sets and features and quite a few more that I'm going to show you throughout this course. Now, in the next video, I'm going to review the three paid versions of Bluebeam Revu and I'll show you how to access this free version that I've been talking about in order to give you the information you need to determine which version might be right for you and the other people throughout your organization or your project team.