Measure a floor plan

1Upload the plan set

Open a material takeoff job and scroll to section 2 Floor plans, marked Optional. The text above the button explains the deal: you set the scale once, trace each room, and a measured room replaces the text's square footage for the room of the same name.

1. Press Upload plan set (PDF) and pick the architect's file.
2. A row appears with the file name, the page count and Delete. The button now reads Upload another plan set (PDF), for jobs drawn on more than one file.
3. Each page gets a card with its thumbnail, its number and a status chip. A new page reads Not measured.
4. Press Measure this page on the page you need.

The Measure screen opens with the heading Measure page 1. Once a page has been opened, its card also offers Skip this page, so a sheet of elevations or details can be set aside. The demonstration plan has a single page, the main floor.

2Calibrate the scale

Every page needs a scale before you can trace on it. Take it from a dimension already printed on the drawing. The progress panel on the right lists three steps: Calibrate, Trace rooms and Style & direction.

1. Press 📏 Calibrate scale. The banner reads "Click the first end of a wall with a known length."
2. Click one end of the printed dimension line. Scroll to zoom in for a precise click, and drag to move the plan.
3. Click the other end.
4. In How long is that line on the plan?, type the printed length and press OK.

The box accepts feet and inches as printed. On the demonstration plan, typing 22'-6" shows = 22.5 ft; 22.5 and 270" work too. A green banner confirms "Scale set — that line is 22.5 ft." and the panel ticks Calibrate. ⬠ Add room stays greyed out until this point. The longer the line you pick, the smaller any click error becomes. Measuring square footage from a plan set covers how to choose it.

3Trace a room

With the scale set, draw mode is already on. Every room is traced corner by corner.

1. Press ⬠ Add room if it is not already active. The hint reads "Click the corners of the room; double-click to close the shape."
2. Click each corner in turn. A line follows the cursor from the last corner.
3. Double-click the last corner to close the outline. Clicking back on the first corner closes it too.
4. In Room name, type the room's name as the job text spells it and press OK.

The name matters. A traced room whose name matches a room from the job details is the one the estimate uses for that room.

The outline fills with straight planks, and the room list on the right shows the result. The demonstration Living room reads Living room · READY · 360.1 sqft, and the progress panel offers Finish measuring. The room is drawn 22'-6" by 16', which is 360 sq ft. The extra 0.1 comes from where the corners were clicked.

4Laying style and direction

Each measured room carries its own laying style, and the style decides the waste rate later. Under the room's name in the list:

• The style menu starts at — style —. Pick one, here Herringbone, and the pattern is redrawn inside the outline. A room left on — style — is drawn and quoted as Straight.
• The direction menu offers horizontal and vertical. Diagonal uses ╲ down-right and ╱ up-right. Basketweave and parquet styles have no direction menu.

Trace the other rooms the same way. One habit saves a redo: after you name a room it stays selected, and your next click on the plan only deselects it. That click places no corner. Before you trace the next room, press ✋ Pan / edit or click an empty spot of the plan, then press ⬠ Add room. If a shape comes out wrong, check it before you name it.

The demonstration page ends with Rooms 3/3 ready: Living room 360.1, Kitchen 192 and Nook 152 sq ft, Total measured: 704.1 sqft.

5Finish measuring and the client sheet

If the client needs a copy of the plan with the rooms drawn on it, download it from the Measure screen before you leave. Press ↓ Client sheet, keep Include measured rooms and flooring patterns ticked and press Download PDF. The sheet shows each traced room with its pattern, name and area. Use ▣ Crop sheet first to cut the architect's title block.

Press Finish measuring to return to the job. The page card now reads 3 rooms with Continue measuring and Skip this page.

In Rooms on this job (step 3), the five rooms from the text keep their Job details source, and the three traced rooms appear as extra rows with Plan p.1 ↗ as their source and "360.1 sqft measured", "192 sqft measured" and "152 sqft measured" as their area. The table lists both, so its total reads 1720.1 sq ft.

The estimate is where the measured figure takes over. The Estimate preview in step 4 lists five rooms: Living room 360.1, Kitchen 192 and Nook 152 from Page 1, and Hall 176 and Primary bedroom 140 from the job details.

6What comes next

The job now has measured areas for the rooms drawn on the plan and the text's figures for the others. Each traced room keeps the laying style you gave it, and the Plan p.1 ↗ link in the Rooms table opens the page it was traced on, where its outline is edited.

The next step is the material. Materials, waste and pricing adds the wood being quoted, assigns it to each room, applies the waste rate that goes with each laying style and prices the order. Until then, every room in the Estimate preview is flagged MISSING MATERIAL ↗.

Once every room has a priced material, Create the quote turns the job into a PDF or QuickBooks drafts.