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1. tombannon
   Member

   We recently bid a police station that had 254 pasges in the drawing set.There were 5 Addenda issued that replaced 120 pages of the set. Often a drawing issued in Addenda 2 is replaced with a reissued drawing in Addenda 3 or 4. In the market we are in this is, unfortunatly, a common occurance.

   Ideally, I would like to open the etakeoff folder, highlight and delete the old drawings in mass and copy/paste the new drawings into the folder, so that I am always working with a current set.(Although, the binocular button works fine for the import). However, this corrupts the estimate file. The only way to delete the drawings is one at a time through Etakeoff. Could a batch function be added so that more than one drawing could be deleted at a time? Or Could the program be adjusted to allow standard Windows file manipulation. I recognize that takeoff data associated with the deleted drawing would be lost, at least in etakeoff, but it would still reside in a spreadsheet if it was not linked, but copied into the spreadsheet.

   Posted 1 year ago #

2. John at eTakeoff
   Administrator

   We would like to add more features to handle versioning of files. That would include the file management you describe above. It would also warn when using/viewing an obsolete file and moving measurements and annotations from the old file to the new (via drawing compare).

   In the scenario above, how would we recognize different versions of the same document? Do they use the same filename but are placed in different folders?

   Are they bookmarked pages in a large PDF file?

   Posted 1 year ago #

3. tombannon
   Member

   Usually they come as indivdual PDFS but if not, we parse the file with Bluebeam or Acrobat. Because we enumerate each page (0001,0002 etc) I usually rename the new files by opening 2 windows explorer windows, one with the old file names and one with the new file to be renamed. I then rename the new files using the same enumerator and file name but I add an R(x) where x = the Addenda # in a seperate folder. When I finish renaming the files, I import the new drawings into E takeoff with the Binocular button, then I scroll through the drawing list and delete the drawings using the "Document Proerties" button that do Not have the R(x) in the file name. I can't delete the old drawings in the estimate file in windowes explorer, because it screws up the estimate file. This is a real pain in the neck.

   Posted 1 year ago #

4. John at eTakeoff
   Administrator

   Are you aware of the File menu option to "Purge Unused Drawings?". That would help with the delete part.

   Posted 1 year ago #

5. tombannon
   Member

   Thanks for you response.

   Yes, I was aware of the button, but I have never used it. The reason is, obviously, it will delete unused drawings. Although I may not be using all the drawings in the set for take offs, I still like to have them available in Etakeoff to view when subs call and have questions. Typically, I do very little with the MEP drawings,but I still like them available for when the fire protection guy, or any other sub, calls about a problem or inconsistancy in the MEP drawings. I also view the pages and print portions of them to a PDF so they can be attached to an RFI to help clarify a question or sent to a sub when they can't seem to find a particular note, table, or section. Additionally, I am not sure if there is a way to designate a drawing as an "unused drawing" when a take off is already done on it. It seems that architects seem to target the plan pages where I have completed the takeoffs the most freaquently for revisions.I don't know how they do it... evil ESP, I suspect.

   Posted 1 year ago #

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