Best PDF Viewer for Measuring & Plan Review?

9/9/2019

I've used a very low-tier PDF editor and viewer and I'm interested in finding a better solution for viewing, marking up, and measuring basics like distance, perimeters, and areas. There's got to be better software options out there. I've heard of Bluebeam, Adobe and I've used Drawboard on my tablet.

What PDF editor & viewer would you recommend (free and paid) that works well in the design industry?

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12 Comments

Brandon Cash

9/9/2019 10:36:51 am

Our firm uses Bluebeam and love it as it is geared towards the AEC industry. However, my personal tablet runs on Chrome OS and there aren't really any equivalent options to Bluebeam on there. I use Xodo on there and any android devices. I have found that to be the best PDF annotation/markup app for android systems.

sean

9/9/2019 10:48:41 am

bluebeam is the go to around me

DTC

9/9/2019 11:16:06 am

I have been using Bluebeam for years and love it.

Our AHJ is now switching to it also for digital plan review.

Marina link

9/9/2019 11:01:19 am

We use PDF-XChange Editor which is very compact, easy to use and can perform a lot of editing tasks.

sean

9/9/2019 11:04:08 am

can you scale out measurements?

Heather

9/9/2019 11:30:33 am

I have been using esticom. It is cheaper and you can pay monthly.

Jonathan

9/9/2019 11:42:50 am

My firm uses bluebeam which works great for that and much more.

Kamal Jivanji link

9/9/2019 12:02:36 pm

Bluebeam is the best known from my experience.

CJB.

9/9/2019 01:12:20 pm

Bluebeam, hands down.

Katie

9/9/2019 01:32:15 pm

We also use BlueBeam. There's a little bit of a learning curve to figure out all the different tools built into it, but after that it's a fabulous program.

Angie

9/9/2019 05:52:16 pm

An economical option is to use Autodesk's dwf viewer Design Review. It will open pdf files (you have to change file type options when opening). Once you open the .pdf you can tell it what scale the drawing is, add dimensions. Etc. Then you can save your changes. You can save it as a .dwf or .pdf. When I need to scale off a drawing this is my go to program.... best of all it is free.

Patrick Drumm

9/10/2019 08:35:53 am

I use Bluebeam and really enjoy the tools it offers.

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