PDF Takeoff lets you measure quantities straight off a plan PDF — a site plan, landscape drawing, or architect's sheet — instead of the live map. Upload the plan, tell the system how long one known distance really is, and then every area, line, and count you draw on the sheet comes back as a real-world measurement. Those measurements can be pushed directly into a project's task quantities, so the takeoff you do on the drawing becomes the budget you build the job on.
Where to Find
From the main sidebar, click Map, then open Site Measurements. Takeoffs live side by side with your map-based measuring sessions — each card shows a badge telling you whether it's a Map session or a PDF takeoff.
Navigation path: Dashboard → Map → Site Measurements
Each card shows the session's name, how many groups and shapes it holds, and when it was last updated. Click Open to continue working on a takeoff, use the copy icon to duplicate one, or the trash icon to delete it.
Creating a Takeoff
Click New PDF takeoff in the top-right corner of the Site Measurements screen.
Name — give the takeoff a name you'll recognize later, such as the property or plan sheet it covers. If you leave it blank it's created as "Untitled takeoff".
Project (optional) — link the takeoff to a project now, or leave it unassigned and link it later from inside the takeoff. Linking a project is what lets you push measured quantities into that project's tasks.
Click Create takeoff.
The takeoff opens with an upload prompt.
Click Choose PDF and select your plan file. The system renders every sheet in the file — you can pan, zoom, and page through the whole plan set once it loads.
Calibrating the Scale — the Most Important Step
A PDF is just a picture; the system has no idea whether an inch on the sheet represents ten feet or a hundred. Calibration is how you teach it. You draw a line along a distance on the plan whose real length you already know — the printed scale bar is perfect, or a dimension label, a property line, anything with a known length — and then type in what that distance really is. From that one line the system works out the scale, and every measurement on that page becomes a real-world number.
Click Calibrate in the top-right of the takeoff.
Click once at each end of a distance you know — for example, the two ends of the plan's scale bar. A colored reference line appears between your two clicks.
In the dialog that opens, enter the Known length and pick the Unit (feet, inches, meters, centimeters, or yards).
Click Save calibration.
The page badge in the header flips from Not calibrated to Calibrated, and the drawing tools and measurement panel appear.
Calibration is per page. Each sheet in a multi-page plan set is calibrated on its own, because different sheets are usually drawn at different scales — a site plan at 1" = 40' and a planting detail at 1" = 10', for example. A page you haven't calibrated yet shows dashes instead of measurements until you calibrate it.
Got the scale wrong? Click Re-calibrate and draw a new line — existing shapes recalculate automatically against the corrected scale.
Drawing Measurements
Once a page is calibrated, a floating toolbar appears over the plan and the measurement panel opens on the left.
The toolbar has four tools:
Tool | What it measures |
|---|---|
Select (hand) | Click a drawn shape to select it (press Delete to remove it). No drawing. |
Area (pentagon) | Square footage. Click each corner of the region, then double-click to close the shape — for lawns, beds, patios, pavement. |
Line (pen) | Linear footage. Click along the run, double-click to finish — for edging, fence lines, pipe runs, curbs. |
Count (pin) | Each click drops one marker — for trees, shrubs, light fixtures, anything you count rather than measure. |
As you draw, clicks snap to nearby corners and lines on the plan, so shapes hug the drawing instead of your eyeballed clicks. Zoom with the mouse wheel for fine work; pan with a right-click drag (or hold the space bar and drag). Drag the toolbar by its grip handle if it's sitting over something you need to see.
Every shape lands in the active group and shows its measurement in the panel immediately — the area above shows 3,878 sq ft the moment it's closed.
Working with Groups
Groups keep related shapes together — think "one group per material or service": a Sod group, a Mulch Beds group, an Edging group. The panel shows a running total per group and grand totals (area, length, and count) across the whole takeoff.
For each group you can:
Rename it and give it a color — shapes on the plan draw in their group's color.
Add or subtract shapes — flip a shape to subtract to cut a hole out of the group total, such as removing an island bed from a lawn area.
Duplicate it — copies the group and its shapes so you can point the same measurement at a different task.
Link it to a task — once the session is linked to a project, each group can be linked to one of that project's tasks and its measurable quantities. This is how a measured area becomes the quantity on a task.
Click Save measurements when you're done. Saving stores the groups and shapes — and if groups are linked to project tasks, the measured quantities are applied to those tasks in the same step.
Multi-Page Plans
If your PDF has several sheets, use the page navigator in the header to step through them. Each page keeps its own calibration and its own shapes — a shape belongs to the sheet you drew it on.
Where Used Elsewhere
Projects & Tasks — quantities you apply from a takeoff land on the linked project's tasks, feeding budgets and estimates.
Site Measurements — takeoffs share the Site Measurements list with map-based measuring sessions; the same group-and-apply workflow is available when measuring on the live map.
Permissions
Access is controlled by the Site Measurements permissions on a person's role: view to open the list and look at takeoffs, create to start a new one, update to upload the PDF, calibrate, and draw, apply to push measured quantities onto a project's tasks, and delete to remove a session. Someone without the apply permission can still measure — they just can't write the numbers into the project.
Tips & Best Practices
Calibrate before you draw, on every page. Measurements on an uncalibrated page show as dashes — the drawing tools only appear once the page has a scale.
Use the printed scale bar to calibrate. It's the one distance on the sheet that exists specifically for this. A labeled dimension works just as well.
Zoom in for the click points. Calibration accuracy sets the accuracy of every measurement on the page; a sloppy reference line skews everything.
One group per material or service. Group totals map cleanly to task quantities that way — "Sod: 3,878 sq ft" instead of one lump of mixed shapes.
Use subtract shapes for cutouts rather than tracing around holes — draw the full lawn, then subtract the island bed.
Common Questions
Do I have to link a project? No. A takeoff works fine as a stand-alone measuring tool. You only need the project link when you want to push quantities onto tasks — and you can add the link at any time from the panel inside the takeoff.
Why does the panel show dashes instead of numbers? The page you're viewing isn't calibrated yet. Calibrate it and the numbers appear.
I calibrated with the wrong length — is my takeoff ruined? No. Click Re-calibrate, draw the line again, and enter the correct length. Shapes are stored against the page itself, so they all recalculate under the corrected scale.
Can one takeoff mix the live map and a PDF? No — a session is one or the other. Use a map session for measuring real properties from aerial imagery and a PDF takeoff for plan drawings. Both appear together in the Site Measurements list.
What happens when I double-click while drawing? Double-clicking finishes the shape you're drawing — it closes an area or ends a line. Count markers don't need it; each click is one marker.
Related Topics
Site Measurements — the map-based twin of PDF takeoffs, sharing the same list, groups, and apply workflow.
Map — the live map where measuring sessions, properties, and geofences live.
Projects — where applied takeoff quantities end up.
Tasks — the tasks whose quantities a takeoff group can fill.