Takeoff Studio — User Guide

Takeoff Studio is a single-window quantity-takeoff workspace: open a drawing, set its scale, and measure Count, Linear and Area quantities that log automatically to a running ledger and export to Excel. Everything below matches the buttons you see on screen.

1 · Getting started (Home screen)

When Takeoff Studio opens you sign in (see Your account), then land on the blueprint Home screen. From here you can:

• Start a new takeoff — type a project name (required — it names your files, the Excel header and the recent list), pick Imperial or Metric units, then Choose Drawings & Start ▶ to select one or more PDF sheets.
• Open a saved project — reopen a .tog file with all its colored markup intact.
• Recent projects — click any recent row to jump straight back in.
• Your account (lower-left) — shows who is Signed in as, with Change Password and Log Out.
• User Guide — opens this guide.

1b · Your account — free trial, password & offline use

Takeoff Studio is licensed to an account, not to a computer, so you can move to a new machine without asking anyone for a new key. Everything on this page happens in the sign-in box or on the Home screen — it is a few minutes of setup, once.

Creating an account

On the sign-in box, click the Create Account tab and fill in your email, a password, your full name and your company. The password must be at least 10 characters. There is no rule about capitals or symbols — length is what makes a password hard to guess — but a password that has appeared in a known data breach is refused, so use one you don't use anywhere else. Click Continue and you are signed in immediately.

We also email you a confirmation link. Click it to confirm your address — this is how we know password-reset codes will reach you. You can work straight away without it; until you confirm, Takeoff Studio reminds you when you sign in.

Signing in on the Log In tab works the same way. The 👁 Show button beside the password field reveals what you typed, which is worth using before you blame the password. Takeoff Studio then stays signed in on that computer; if you go a long stretch without opening it the saved session eventually expires and the sign-in box simply comes back.

The 7-day free trial

A new account lands on the Activate screen. Click Start my 7-day free trial and the whole product unlocks — every feature, no credit card. Nothing is limited or watermarked during the trial, and the takeoffs you save are ordinary .tog files on your own disk.

• Days left show in the window title bar — “Takeoff Studio … · Free trial — 4 days left” — so the clock is never a surprise.
• One trial per account. Once it is used the button is gone; creating a second account to reset it is not the intent.
• Nothing is lost when it ends. Every project you saved stays on your computer and opens again the moment you purchase.

Buying

Takeoff Studio is a one-time purchase — $499, no subscription. Click Buy Now — $499 on the Activate screen and checkout opens in your browser. When you have paid, come back to Takeoff Studio and click I've purchased — Continue; the license unlocks on your account instantly. If it says the payment was not found, wait a few seconds after paying and click it again.

If you are already an owner on a different email, use the Sign in as a different user link at the bottom of the Activate screen instead of buying twice.

Changing your password

While you are signed in, click Change Password at the lower-left of the Home screen. Enter your current password, then the new one twice — each field has its own 👁 Show button. The new password must be at least 10 characters, not a known-breached password, and different from the old one. You stay signed in on this computer — the new password is what you will use the next time you sign in.

Forgot your password

If you cannot sign in, click Forgot password? on the Log In tab:

1. Type your email address and click Send Code.
2. Check your inbox for a 6-digit reset code.
3. Type the code, choose a new password (10 characters or more), enter it twice, and click Reset Password. The code works for one hour and allows 5 tries; after that, click Send Code for a fresh one.
4. Sign in with the new password.

Logging out

Click Log Out at the lower-left of the Home screen and confirm. Takeoff Studio returns to the sign-in box, ready for a different account. Your saved .tog projects stay on the computer — logging out only removes the sign-in. Use it on a shared or borrowed PC, or before handing a laptop to someone else.

Working offline

• Once you have purchased, Takeoff Studio runs offline. No connection is needed to open drawings, measure, save or export.
• A free trial is verified online, so a trial user needs a connection at launch. If the app cannot reach the activation server it says so plainly and asks you to check your connection.
• Signing in always needs a connection. If you log out, have internet available the next time you open Takeoff Studio.

2 · The workspace

The window has three parts:

• Top toolbar — sheet picker, page ◀ / ▶, 📄 Page ▾ (rotate / rename sheets), zoom − ＋ Fit, the Scale dropdown and ⚙ Calibrate, 🖶 Export ▾, 🗂 Overlays, 🏷 Zones, 🗒 Note, ▤ Legend, ❓ Guide, 🗂 Drawings ▾ (add or remove drawing PDFs) and 🗔 Project ▾ (New / Open / Save project — switch projects without restarting).
• Drawing canvas — where you measure. Your cursor is a thin black crosshair with a large surveyor target (open diamond + red center dot) marking exactly where a point will land.
• Right sidebar — the measurement mode, the current running quantity, the live takeoff ledger, and the pinned 📊 Create Excel Report / Save / Open / Close bar.

3 · Setting the scale

Every sheet keeps its own scale. Set it before (or right after) measuring so quantities compute correctly:

• Pick a scale — choose a standard scale (e.g. 1/4" = 1'-0") from the Scale dropdown if the PDF is a true full-size sheet.
• Calibrate — click ⚙ Calibrate, then click two points a known distance apart and type that distance. Use this when the sheet was plotted to fit or the scale is unknown.

4 · Zoom & pan

• Zoom — roll the mouse wheel toward the cursor, or use −/＋/Fit.
• Pan — hold the right mouse button and drag in any direction.
• Fine horizontal scroll — Shift + mouse wheel.
• Sheets with a rendering or photograph on them cost far more to draw than line work. On those, zooming and panning stay live by showing the previous frame stretched to the new position — it looks momentarily soft — and the sheet re-sharpens the instant you stop moving. That is working as intended, not a half-loaded drawing.

5 · Starting a takeoff

Click ➕ Start New Takeoff in the sidebar. The Name & Categorize Takeoff dialog appears — you enter everything up front:

• Description — e.g. "Carpet — Suite 200".
• CSI Code — optional, e.g. 09 68 00.
• Color — the markup color for this takeoff. The palette is a bold, high-contrast set so shades stay easy to tell apart on a busy drawing.
• Count symbol — the marker used if this is a Count takeoff (see §6).
• Area fill pattern — solid or a hatch (horizontal, vertical, diagonal ╱ / ╲, crosshatch, brick) used if this is an Area takeoff, so adjacent areas read as clearly different scopes even in similar colors (see §8).
• Line weight & style — for Linear takeoffs, pick the line thickness (1–6 px) and a solid, dashed or dotted style, so different runs (e.g. new vs. existing, demo vs. proposed) read distinctly (see §7).
• Categories — unlimited free-form tags (e.g. Phase 1, East Wing, a funding source…). A takeoff can carry any number; each tag becomes its own Excel tab whose total is the sum of every line item sharing that tag.

Then pick a mode and click on the drawing. Click ⏹ Stop Takeoff when the item is finished — it logs to the ledger automatically.

5b · Assemblies — your own library

Most estimators measure the same things over and over. Rather than retyping a name, CSI code, color, fill and material conversion on every project, save the setup once as an assembly and apply it in one click.

An assembly can be a single material or a dozen. A one-material entry is simply an assembly of one — it behaves exactly like the presets did.

At the top of the Name & Categorize Takeoff dialog:

• ASSEMBLY dropdown — pick one and every field below fills in at once: description, CSI code, tags, color, count symbol, area fill pattern, line weight & style, and the material conversion of every component.
• Save as assembly… — stores the setup exactly as it stands under a name you choose, in a group you choose (Concrete, Drywall, your own name…). Saving over an existing name updates it.
• ✕ — removes the selected assembly. This never touches a takeoff you already measured.
• A count in the drop-down — e.g. Partition type A   (3 materials) — means that entry produces that many estimate lines from one measurement. See §5c.
• Load examples — adds three worked examples to your library. See the panel below.

5c · Assemblies — one measurement, several materials

A partition run is never one material. Measure 1,000 LF of wall and you owe the bid board, studs, tape and finish, primer and paint — five lines, five CSI codes, five different coverage factors, all off the same measured length. Measuring that wall five times is five chances to measure it differently.

An assembly measures it once. You draw the wall, press Stop Takeoff, and the ledger gains one row per material — each with its own description, its own CSI code and its own ORDER QTY worked off that one length.

Building one

1. Press ➕ Start New Takeoff.
2. In the ASSEMBLY row, click 🧱 Components….
3. ＋ Add one component per material. Each asks for three things:
   • Description — this becomes the estimate line.
   • CSI Code — leave it blank to use the takeoff's own code.
   • Measures — set inside ⚙ Set up conversion…, because it decides which number everything else in that window is applied to. See Area and perimeter just below.
   • Coverage basis — see the warning below. This is the important one.
   then ⚙ Set up conversion… for that material's material unit, dimensions, factor and waste (the same window described in §15). Each component is priced in ITS OWN unit, so one slab can buy concrete by the CY, barrier by the SF and steel by the LB.

8. ▲ / ▼ put them in the order you want them on the estimate; ✕ Remove drops one.
9. Save Assembly, then Save as preset… on the main dialog so you never build it again. Assembly presets sit in the picker beside the plain ones.
10. Measure the wall and press ⏹ Stop Takeoff.

Area and perimeter from one outline

Some work is bought two ways off the same shape. Draw a basement once and the area gives the cubic yards to excavate and haul, while the perimeter of that very same outline gives the footing forms, the drain tile and the waterproofing. A slab gives the concrete from its area and the edge form from its perimeter; a room gives the carpet from its area and the base from its perimeter.

Open ⚙ Set up conversion… and set the Measures box to The PERIMETER of the area. That material then measures the outline: an ordinary length line — LF (or LM in metric) — with its own coverage, its own ORDER QTY and its own price. It shows from PERIMETER in the component list so you can tell the two apart at a glance, and the worked example at the bottom of the conversion window starts from the perimeter so you can see what you are about to price.

• Several regions add up, exactly as their areas do: five footings drawn as five shapes give the total outline of all five.
• A cut-out ADDS to the perimeter. A void subtracts from what you dig and what you pour, but you still form, waterproof and drain around it — so its edge is more linear feet, not fewer. The same cut-out therefore takes area away from one material and gives length to another, off one drawing.
• Everything downstream behaves normally: ✂ Parts lists the pieces in LF, a zone bills the length of outline inside it, and re-scaling the sheet re-measures both the area and the perimeter together.
• On a takeoff that is not an area — a line or a count — the setting has no outline to read and the component simply measures what you drew.

Living with an assembly

• In the ledger the first material carries a ┌ and the rest hang off it with └ — several rows, one drawn shape. Selecting any of them says "1 of 4 in an assembly" in the status bar.
• On the drawing there is one set of markup in one colour, because there was one measurement. The legend lists it once and notes the other materials.
• Pricing — each material is a separate line in 💲 Pricing and a separate row in Excel under its own CSI section. That is the point: you check a bid line by line.
• ✂ Parts — removing a room or a run removes it from every material and re-totals them all. It has to: they measured the same piece.
• 🗑 Delete removes the whole assembly, and says how many lines that is before it does. There is one piece of markup, so there is no such thing as deleting the paint but keeping the wall.
• ✏ Edit on one material changes that material's description, CSI code and coverage. Colour, symbol, pattern and line style are shared by all of them, because they share the markup.
• ➕ Add More is not available on an assembly — adding to one material alone would put its quantity out of step with the others. Measure the extra wall as a new takeoff with the same assembly preset.

Your own assembly library

An assembly you built by hand is worth keeping. Once it is right, save it and it is waiting in every project you ever open.

1. Build the assembly and press Save Assembly.
2. On the Name & Categorize dialog, press Save as preset….
3. Give it a name — e.g. Partition type A — 3-5/8" @ 16" o.c.
4. Give it a group — e.g. My Assemblies, or Division 26, or anything you like. The group is just a heading in the drop-down; invent as many as you find useful.

The whole assembly is saved — every material, with its own CSI code, order unit, coverage, waste, height, faces and coats. Pick it from the PRESET drop-down in any project and all of the materials come back with it. Saving under a name you have already used updates that one instead of adding a duplicate.

The Assemblies tab in the workbook

Breaking a wall into materials is only half the point; the other half is seeing what that wall costs. Every job containing an assembly gets an Assemblies tab — one tab, not one per assembly — with each assembly as its own block:

4in slab on grade   -   measured 1,000 SF   on S-101

 CSI       MATERIAL               QTY PRICED  UNIT    ORDER QTY  UNIT COST  EXTENDED
 03 31 00  Concrete 4000 psi           12.34  CY          12.34   $185.00  $2,283.72
 07 26 00  Vapour barrier 10 mil    1,000.00  SF       1,000.00     $0.28  $  280.00
 03 21 00  Reinforcing steel        1,130.00  LBS      1,130.00     $0.92  $1,039.60
 03 22 00  Welded wire mesh             1.47  rolls           2   $210.00  $  308.00
                       4IN SLAB ON GRADE  SUBTOTAL                         $3,911.32
                       cost per SF of slab measured (1,000 SF)                 $3.91

• Every row is in the unit that material is priced in, with the rate beside it, so the line reads straight across: 12.34 CY × $185.00 = $2,283.72. The measurement it all came from is stated once, in the block heading.
• The subtotal is money, not quantity. Members share a measurement but not a unit — CY, SF, LBS — so adding their quantities would produce a number with no meaning. Adding their costs produces the one you want.
• Cost per unit measured is the figure a breakout exists for: $3.91 per SF of slab, comparable against another slab type on the same basis.
• Everything links to By CSI. Price an item there and this tab follows; the two can never disagree.
• Two walls built from the same saved assembly stay two blocks with two subtotals. They are two walls.

The Bid Summary also gains a BY ASSEMBLY block. Unlike category tags, assemblies do not overlap — a line belongs to one or to none — but they still cover only the scope you measured as an assembly, so they do not sum to the bid.

6 · Count takeoffs & symbols

In Count (EA) mode each click drops a marker and increments the count. Pick a count symbol in the Start-Takeoff dialog so different fixture types stay visually distinct on one sheet:

7 · Linear takeoffs, line weight & arcs

In Linear (LF) mode, click point to point and the segments chain together into a continuous run — 1 → 2 → 3 → 4… To start a disconnected run, double-click to "lift the pen," then click again; every run still adds into the same takeoff. For a curved wall, press R (or ⌒ Arc (R)) and click begin · middle · end — Takeoff Studio computes the true arc length and folds it into the run. A curve draws as a single arc outline with one length label, so it never hides the drawing underneath.

8 · Area takeoffs, perimeter & cut-outs

In Area (SF) mode, click the corners of a room; the region fills in live and the square footage updates on every click. Double-click to close a room, then keep clicking to add more rooms — ⏹ Stop Takeoff sums them all into one ledger item. Press R mid-boundary for a curved edge.

Cut-outs — subtracting islands, voids & openings

Real areas have holes in them: landscaped islands in a parking lot, a stair or elevator opening in a floor slab, an equipment pad you aren't paying for. Click ➖ Subtract Area (cut-out) to switch into deduct mode, click the corners of the hole and double-click to close it — its square footage is deducted from the takeoff and the label shows the net area.

There are two ways in, and both work:

• While you're measuring — draw the room, then press ➖ Subtract Area (cut-out) and draw the holes. Press it again to go back to adding regions.
• On a takeoff you already finished — select it in the ledger, then press ➖ Subtract Area (cut-out). Takeoff Studio reopens that takeoff for measuring and drops straight into cut-out mode, so your very next click starts the hole. Click ⏹ Stop Takeoff to re-log it with the deduction merged in.

The button turns gold and reads ➖ Subtracting (cut-out) — ON while the mode is active, and the mode resets after you Stop the takeoff.

9 · The takeoff ledger (find & sort)

Every finished takeoff appears in the TAKEOFFS ledger (description · quantity · unit), colored to match its markup, with running totals per unit. Click a row to highlight that takeoff on the drawing.

The ledger is where you change the words; the drawing is where you change the shape. Double-click a row (or select it and click ✏ Edit) to open its Name & Categorize screen — description, CSI code, tags, color, price. Clicking the markup out on the drawing instead picks the takeoff up for reshaping.

Finding one takeoff among hundreds

• Filter box — type above the ledger and it narrows to matching takeoffs as you type. It searches the description, CSI code, tag, trade, sheet and unit, so "09 29", "A-101", "drywall" or "Phase 2" all work. Several words narrow further: wall paint finds only takeoffs matching both. ✕ clears it.
• Click any column heading to sort — #, Description, Qty or Unit. Click the same heading again to reverse it. Sorting only changes what you see; selecting, editing and deleting still act on the right takeoff.
• The running total follows the filter. With a filter active the header shows "12 of 47" and totals just those 12 — so the number always describes the rows in front of you.

9b · Comparing drawings — overlays

Takeoff Studio can lay multiple sheets over one another so you can compare Architectural, Structural and MEP at a glance — coordinate clashes, sleeve locations, slab edges vs. walls, and more. First load the sheets with ➕ Add Drawing, then open 🗂 Overlays.

• Pick a sheet and click ➕ Overlay — it's traced over the sheet you're viewing in its own color. Add four or more overlays at once.
• Each overlay gets a distinct color; change it from the color drop-down on its row (Blue, Red, Green…). The base sheet keeps its original black linework so overlays stand out.
• Toggle any overlay on/off with its checkbox, or remove it with ✕. Overlays stay put while you pan, zoom and switch the base sheet.
• Drag the panel wider if a sheet name is long. Each row names the sheet it is tracing, and a name is a sheet number plus the PDF's filename, which can run long — the panel resizes in both directions, and a name too long for the current width wraps onto a second line rather than being cut off.
• Align it if it doesn't register. Each overlay has its own controls: nudge ◀ ▶ ▲ ▼ (by the shared point step — 1/5/20/50), scale − / +, and ⟲ to reset. A live readout shows the current x/y offset and scale, so mismatched-size or shifted sheets can be dialed in to line up perfectly.
• Overlays are saved with the project. Save, close, reopen a week later and every overlay comes back — same sheet, same colour, on or off as you left it, and with the alignment you nudged into place. If one of the overlaid PDFs has since been moved, renamed or reissued with fewer pages, that overlay is quietly skipped and the status bar says so; your takeoffs are never affected. Re-add it from 🗂 Overlays.

9c · Zones — tag an area to a donor / category, and bill only the part it covers

A zone tags every takeoff a region of the drawing covers, at once — perfect when a donor funds one wing, a phase covers part of a floor, or a grant pays for a specific area. Zones belong to the sheet you draw them on (they don't appear on other sheets). Open 🏷 Zones to manage them; click ➕ New zone, then:

• Click the corners around the area (any shape) — it highlights as you go — and double-click to finish.
• Name the category / donor (e.g. Donor A) — it autocompletes from tags you've already used.
• Every takeoff the outline covers any part of gets that tag (on top of any it already has). A translucent outline stays on the drawing, labeled with the tag.

A zone bills only the part it covers

Work doesn't stop politely at the edge of a donor area. A sidewalk runs the length of the site; a wall base runs the width of the floor. A zone measures how much of each takeoff is actually inside it, and its Excel tab bills that amount — not the whole takeoff, and not nothing.

• Area — the square footage inside the outline, with any cut-out inside the zone subtracted as usual.
• Linear — the length of the run inside the outline. A wall that leaves the zone and comes back counts both stretches and nothing in between.
• Count — the number of marks that landed inside.
• A takeoff that sits wholly inside is billed in full, exactly as before.

On the zone's Excel tab a partly-covered takeoff shows its covered quantity in gold, with a line above the table saying so — so a number that doesn't match the same takeoff's row on By CSI is never a mystery. Its unit costs still come from By CSI, so you price the item once and every zone it touches follows.

Zones are fully editable from the Zones panel — each one has:

• Rename — type a new name in its box and press Enter (renames the tag on every takeoff it covers, and its Excel tab).
• Color — pick the zone's highlight color from the drop-down (Blue, Red…), like an overlay.
• ✓ Shown / Hidden — turn its highlighted outline on or off.
• ✎ Edit shape — then drag the square handles on the drawing to reshape/resize it; takeoffs that move in or out of the region are re-tagged and re-measured automatically, so pulling the zone further over a sidewalk immediately increases the footage on its tab.
• ⧉ Copy to ▾ — copy the zone (same shape) to another sheet, e.g. a donor area that repeats floor-to-floor; that sheet's takeoffs inside it get tagged too.
• ✕ Delete — removes the zone and its tag from the takeoffs it covered.

Because a tag's value is the sum of its line items, Donor A has its own Excel tab that totals everything in that area — no manual selecting — and it stays in sync as you edit the zone. Zones are saved in the project file.

10 · Adding to a takeoff — and deleting part of one

Missed a room? You don't have to start over. Select the takeoff in the ledger and click ➕ Add More to Selected Takeoff. Its geometry reloads as the active measurement on its own sheet — keep clicking the extra rooms/walls/counts, then ⏹ Stop Takeoff re-logs it with the additions merged in.

Not available on an assembly. Adding to one material of an assembly alone would leave its quantity out of step with the others measured off the same wall, so Takeoff Studio says so instead of doing it. Measure the extra run as a new takeoff with the same assembly preset.

Took off the wrong room? Delete just that piece

Five rooms of tile in one takeoff, and the fourth one turns out to be the wrong room. Select the takeoff and click ✂ Parts: every piece of it is listed separately — each room of an area takeoff, each run of a linear one, each mark of a count — with its own quantity.

• Click a piece and it is outlined in gold on the drawing, so you can see exactly which room you are about to remove before you remove it.
• 🗑 Delete this piece (or the Delete key) removes only that piece. The rest of the takeoff keeps its markup, and the takeoff re-totals itself — quantity, ledger, the estimate line and the material ORDER QTY all follow.
• A curve counts as one piece even though it is drawn from many small segments, and a cut-out is listed as a cut-out with a negative quantity — delete it and its area goes back into the total.
• Remove the last remaining piece and the takeoff itself is removed; it tells you so rather than leaving an empty line in the ledger.
• Ctrl+Z undoes the whole thing if you change your mind.
• On an assembly the piece comes off every material and they all re-total — they measured the same room. The confirmation says so before it happens.

10b · Reshaping a takeoff you've already drawn

Drew the wall two feet short? Took the room to the wrong side of a partition? You no longer have to delete the takeoff and start again — which threw away its name, CSI code, prices, tags and its place in an assembly along with the shape.

Click the takeoff's markup on the drawing. Its corners turn into white square handles, the status bar says how many, and nothing else changes.

• Drag any handle to move that corner. The shape, the quantity label on the sheet, the ledger row, the estimate line and the material ORDER QTY all update as soon as you let go — and any zone it moves into or out of is re-measured with it.
• Finish with a double-click, ⏹ Stop Takeoff, or Esc. Clicking blank paper also puts the handles away.
• Click a different takeoff and the handles move straight to that one.
• Ctrl+Z undoes the whole reshape in one step, not corner by corner.

Where two legs of a linear run meet, the corner is one handle — drag it and both legs follow, so a run can never be torn in half.

11 · Editing colors, line style, patterns & symbols

Select a takeoff and click ✏ Edit (or double-click it, or click its markup on the drawing) to change its description, CSI, categories, color, count symbol, area fill pattern or line weight & style — changing the color recolors its markup. 🗑 Delete removes a takeoff and its markup.

11b · Drawing notes, labels & arrows

Click 🗒 Note to drop a text label on the sheet — handy to name a drawing with no title block, flag an assumption, or call out an area. A note box appears at the center of the view; type your text and drag it anywhere. Double-click a note to edit it again.

• Formatting — toggle Bold and a Border box, bump the text size, and pick a color.
• Alignment — set the note's text left, center or right (matters for multi-line notes).
• Background — a 0–100% opacity slider puts a translucent (or solid) box behind the note so it stands out over busy linework; click the swatch to pick the box color. 0% = fully clear.

Notes print and export with the sheet, so they're part of your defensible marked-up record. The border box is drawn at line weight 2 — the same thin line as a Linear takeoff at weight 2.

Arrows — point a note at what it means

In the note window, click ➚ Draw arrow. The arrow starts on the edge of the note's box and takes the note's color. Click to add a bend — as many as it takes to route around the drawing — then double-click on the item to place the arrowhead. The start of the line has no mark; the end has the arrowhead. The line is line weight 2.

• An arrow on its own — click ➚ Arrow on the top toolbar, click where it starts, click the bends, double-click the arrowhead. It stays on for the next one; press Esc or click ➚ Arrow again to stop.
• It follows its note. Drag the note and the arrow's tail moves with it. Change the note's color and its arrows change too.
• Reshape it — drag any corner, or drag the line to move the whole arrow. Double-click an arrow to change its color or delete it.
• Bends lock level or upright like a Linear run; hold Shift for any angle. Undo while drawing takes back the last click.
• Deleting a note keeps its arrows where they are. Arrows save with the project, turn with the sheet, and print and export.

11c · On-drawing legend (for prints)

Click ▤ Legend to drop a legend onto the current sheet that automatically lists every takeoff on that sheet — a color swatch, the description, and the quantity/unit for each. It's built for the moment you need to hand a bidder a printed drawing showing the takeoff trail instead of the Excel.

• Per sheet & toggle — each sheet has its own legend; click ▤ Legend to show or hide it.
• Move it — it drops into the top-right corner; drag it anywhere, like a note.
• Resize it — drag the gold corner handle to scale it up or down; the text wraps to the width so nothing is cut off.
• It prints — the legend exports and prints on the sheet (a normal page), and it's saved in the project file.

11d · Adding & removing drawings

Use 🗂 Drawings ▾ to manage the PDFs in the project without restarting:

• ➕ Add Drawing PDF(s)… — append one or more PDFs; their sheets are added to the sheet picker.
• 🗑 Remove a Drawing… — pick a loaded PDF from the list and remove it (and its sheets/markup) — the simple fix when you loaded the wrong set. The view re-anchors to a remaining sheet, or clears if none are left.

11e · Rotating & naming sheets (📄 Page ▾)

Plenty of drawing sets are plotted sideways — the page is portrait but the drawing on it is landscape, so the title block runs up the left edge and every room tag reads bottom-to-top. That is how the file was made, and nothing can fix it except turning the sheet. 📄 Page ▾ does that, and handles sheet names while you are there.

• ↺ Rotate Left 90° / ↻ Rotate Right 90° — turn the sheet on screen. Your markup turns with it, so takeoffs you have already drawn stay exactly where you drew them on the drawing.
• ↻ Rotate ALL Sheets Right 90° — a set that is plotted sideways is usually sideways all the way through. This turns every sheet at once.
• ✎ Rename This Sheet… — give the sheet on screen your own name.
• ✎ Rename All Sheets… — name the whole set in one pass (below).

Your writing turns too. Notes, zone titles, dimension figures, quantity labels and the legend all turn with the sheet, so they keep reading the same way round as the drawing's own text — on screen, in an export and on paper. Anything you add AFTER turning a sheet reads straight, which is what you want: straighten a sideways set first, then take it off, and every note you type is the right way up. Turn the sheet again later and that note turns with it.

Rotating never changes a quantity. Turning a sheet does not change any distance on it, so your scale and every takeoff you have logged are untouched. You can calibrate first and rotate later, or the other way round. The rotation is saved with the project, so sheets come back the way you left them.

Naming a whole set in one pass

Scanned and photocopied bid sets often have no readable drawing number — the sheet picker then shows (no sheet #) for all of them, which is no help when you are picking a sheet or reading an export. ✎ Rename All Sheets… walks the set with you:

• A small box opens beside the drawing, not over it, so you can read the title block while you type the name.
• Type a name and press Enter — it saves, and the next sheet comes up behind the box. Keep going; you never need the mouse.
• ◀ Back (or Shift+Enter) returns to the sheet before, with the name you gave it already in the box, so a typo is easy to fix.
• Skip moves on and leaves that sheet's name alone.
• ↺ ↻ straighten a sideways sheet without leaving the walk-through — worth doing here, since you are looking at every sheet anyway.
• It starts at the sheet you were already on, so you can name half the set, carry on with your takeoff, and pick up where you left off later.

Stop whenever you like. Press Esc or close the box. Every name you have typed is already saved — names are applied as you leave each sheet, never held back to the end.

12 · Dimension ruler, auto-straighten & undo

• 📏 Dimension — lay a movable dark-grey ruler between two points to check a distance. It locks horizontal or vertical as you draw (hold Shift for a free angle) with a live preview, and draws with architectural end marks (a perpendicular witness tick plus a 45° slash) and a feet-inch figure read to the nearest ½" (e.g. 12'-4 ½"), with no box around it. It is not a takeoff — it never appears in the ledger or Excel — but it does print/export on the sheet and is saved in the project.
• Auto-straighten — always on: near-horizontal / near-vertical moves lock to the axis automatically so walls and edges come out clean and orthogonal. Hold Shift to move freehand at any angle.
• ↶ Undo (or Ctrl+Z) works two ways. While you are measuring it removes the last point, segment, whole arc or zone corner. When nothing is being measured it steps back through the ledger — so a takeoff you deleted, edited or cleared by mistake comes back, with its Excel line attached. It remembers the last 40 changes of the session.
• 🗙 Clear Current clears only the active (unlogged) measurement. Your logged takeoffs are not touched.

12b · Keyboard shortcuts

The mouse does everything, but these keep your hand off it on a long takeoff. Letter keys are ignored while you are typing in a box, so they can never change your mode mid-name.

13 · Saving & backups

💾 Save writes a .tog project file that stores your drawings reference, every takeoff, and all colored markup — including zones, notes, dimension rulers, legends, sheet rotations and drawing overlays. 📂 Open (or a Recent project on the Home screen) restores it exactly, so the marked-up drawing is your defensible record.

Your work is written when you say so

A takeoff is hours of work, so the two moments where it could be lost are both guarded:

• Closing with unsaved changes asks first. You get Yes (save, then close), No (close and lose the changes) or Cancel (go back and change nothing). The same question appears if you open a different project while the current one has unsaved work.
• Dated backups. Every save copies the previous contents into a .takeoff_backups folder beside the project, keeping the newest 20. If a save ever goes wrong, the version before it is still there.
• The status bar shows the save state at the bottom right — "Saved 2:14 PM" — so you never have to wonder.

13b · Pricing in the app

You price in the unit the material is sold in. If a takeoff carries a material conversion, the Pricing window shows the converted quantity and its unit — 12.34 CY, 1,130 LBS — and the rate you type is a rate in that unit: $/CY, $/LBS. A takeoff with no conversion is priced in the unit you measured, exactly as before.

A takeoff runs over days, and so does pricing. If your prices live only in an exported spreadsheet, then re-exporting after you measure one more room hands you a fresh blank template and strands everything you typed. So prices live in the project: type them once, and every export from then on comes out priced.

• 💲 Pricing (above 📊 Create Excel Report) opens a grid of the estimate lines — the same lines the workbook will carry, in the same order.
• Click a Material, Labor or Equipment cell and type a unit cost. Tab moves to the next cell, Enter drops to the next line, Esc cancels. Unit Total and Extended follow as you type; quantities come from the takeoff and are not editable here.
• A takeoff added to across several sheets is one line here, totalled — price it once and it prices every sheet it was measured on.
• Each material of an assembly is its own line here — board priced per sheet, studs per stud, paint per gallon. That is the point of an assembly: one measurement, but a bid you can check line by line.
• Lines nobody has priced are tinted, and the counter at the top right tells you how many are still unpriced. A blank price stays blank all the way to the workbook — it is never treated as $0.00.
• Pricing is entirely optional. Ignore this window and the workbook exports with empty price cells to fill in by hand, exactly as before.

14 · Export, print & Excel

There are two workbooks, and they are for two different readers. 📊 Create Excel Report is the estimator's working document — every quantity, the conversion block, and the material / labor / equipment split. 📄 Executive Summary is the one you send to the client. See §14b.

• 📊 Create Excel Report — one workbook with an Instructions tab, a Bid Summary, a By CSI sheet, plus a tab per category tag (e.g. Phase 1, East Wing). Bid Summary is the one-page recap you hand someone instead of the full line-item dump: money by CSI division, money by category tag, and the total bid. Every figure on it is a live link to the detail tabs, so it can never disagree with them — price a line on By CSI and the summary moves with it. (Tags can overlap, so the tag list is a set of views of the same scope and deliberately does not add up to the bid total.) By CSI is the master: type Material / Labor / Equipment unit costs into the shaded cells there — or price in the app and find them already filled in, still editable — and the TOTAL UNIT COST column adds the three together so the Extended Total is Priced Qty × Total Unit Cost — the quantity in the unit the material is bought in, not the unit the drawing was measured in. The three unit-cost columns and the whole material-conversion block are collapsible: click the minus button above them to fold them away and leave Qty, Total Unit Cost and Extended Total on screen. Category tabs link back to By CSI (grey cells) so pricing is entered once and flows everywhere — each category tab's sheet total is that category's value. On a zone's tab a takeoff the zone only partly covers carries its covered quantity in gold instead of a link, with a note above the table saying so; its unit costs still link to By CSI, so that row is priced at the same rates as everywhere else. SOURCE SHEET sits directly beside the description, so you can see which drawing a quantity came from without scrolling across the page. Every sheet is grouped by CSI division, and where a division holds more than one CSI section — Division 09 typically holds framing, drywall, ceilings, flooring and painting — each section gets its own banner row naming it once, its own section subtotal, and the division subtotal adds those up. The code is no longer repeated on every line beneath its banner. A sheet total closes the page; the project name (top-right, editable) and date repeat on every printed page. Takeoffs given a material conversion also get LENGTH, WIDTH, HEIGHT, EACH, FACTOR, × / ÷ and WASTE % columns — all editable — followed by PRICED QTY, PRICED UNIT and ORDER QTY. An ASSEMBLY column names the assembly each line came off, so a part is traceable back to the wall it was measured as, and the job gets an Assemblies tab (see §5c). Anything tagged as a drawing revision adds a priced Revision Summary tab.
• 🖶 Export/Print ▾ — export the marked-up sheet as PDF or PNG, or choose 🖨 Print. Print first shows a Print Preview of exactly what will print; click Print there and the standard Windows print dialog opens so you can pick your printer and settings (wide sheets are auto-rotated and fit to the page). Exported and printed sheets show everything you see on screen — colored markup (with its line weight/style), quantity labels (area + perimeter), count symbols, notes, dimension rulers, the on-drawing legend, drawing overlays and zone highlights — so they're ready to drop into a client report or hand to a bidder.

14b · 📄 Executive Summary — the client deliverable

The workbook in §14 is your document. It shows the material, labor and equipment behind every rate, because that is how you build and defend a number. An owner or a GC executive does not want that breakout — they want the project summed by CSI division, one unit cost a line, and a bottom line they can read in a minute.

📄 Executive Summary sits under 📊 Create Excel Report and writes a separate file. It is deliberately not produced every time you export — you make it when you are ready to issue, so a half-priced estimate never leaves the office looking finished.

What it asks for

• Project, address and date — the letterhead on both sheets.
• Gross area in SF. Every $/GSF figure on the summary divides by this one cell, including the site-work column. Leave it blank and the per-GSF column is simply empty — the sheet still issues.
• Markups — General Conditions & Overhead, Overhead, Fee/Profit, Bond, Contingency, each with its own Building % and Site %. They are flat percentages of the direct cost and they do not compound. Rename a row, or clear its name to drop it entirely.

Sheet 1 — Project Cost Summary

Every CSI division on one page, in three column pairs: Building Cost, Site Work and Total Cost, each showing dollars and $/GSF. Then DIRECT CONSTRUCTION COST, the markup rows, and TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST.

• Divisions with no cost are still listed, at $0. That is a statement — considered, not in scope — and it is the same thing the “Bond – Not Included” row says.
• Building vs Site Work is decided by division: 31 Earthwork, 32 Exterior Improvements and 33 Utilities are site work, everything else is building. To override it, tag the takeoff Site Work — a sidewalk is Division 03 concrete but it belongs in the site column, and you are the one who knows that.
• The markup percentages are editable cells. Change a fee in front of a client and the bottom line moves while they watch.

Sheet 2 — Estimate Detail

CSI · Line · Description · Quantity · UM · Unit Cost · Total. Lines are numbered 005, 010, 015 within each division, so you can insert one later without renumbering everything beneath it. Each division gets a subtotal. Takeoffs tagged Added or Removed are listed after the estimate, each group with its own subtotal, and are not in the construction cost.

• One unit cost per line — your material, labor and equipment added together. The split is in your own workbook; it is not on this one.
• One quantity per line, in the unit the material is priced in. A converted line shows 198.52 CY, not 5,360 SF.
• Quantity and Unit Cost are input cells and every total is a formula, so the sheet stays live if you adjust a line while you are talking.
• Money is rounded to the whole dollar throughout.

15 · Material conversion & waste

You measure what the drawing gives you. You price what the material is sold in. A slab is taken off in SF; the concrete in it is bought by the CY, the vapour barrier by the SF and the reinforcing by the LB. Material conversion is how one measurement becomes all three.

In the Name & Categorize Takeoff dialog, find MATERIAL CONVERSION and click ⚙ Set up conversion… On an assembly each component has its own, so the materials of one wall can be priced in four different units.

One model: dimensions, a factor, waste

Everything in construction is measured in some combination of length, width, height and each — then a factor turns that into the unit the material is bought in. The window has one row for each idea:

• Material unit — what you price in: CY, LBS, SF, sheets (4x12), gal, TONS.
• Factor, with a × / ÷ toggle beside it — 27 cubic feet ÷ to a cubic yard; 48 SF ÷ to a 4x12 sheet; 1.13 pounds of steel × per SF of slab. The direction is explicit because half of these multiply and half divide.
• Waste % — the allowance for cuts and breakage. It is included in the quantity you price, because you pay to place what you buy.
• Length, Width, Height / thickness — the dimensions the drawing did not give you. A 4" slab is 0.333 ft of height; an 8" wall is 0.667 ft of width.
• Each — a plain multiplier for faces, coats, layers: two faces of board, three coats of paint.
• Sold in whole units — tick it for sheets, rolls and cartons. See the panel below; it matters more than it looks.

What you’ll price

The line at the bottom spells out the arithmetic on your measured quantity, not a worked example, so you can check it against the drawing in front of you:

Example — you take off 1,000 SF of slab:
    Concrete        Material unit = CY     Height = 0.33   Factor = ÷ 27     →  12.22 CY
    Vapour barrier  Material unit = SF     (nothing else)                  →  1,000 SF
    Rebar           Material unit = LBS    Factor = × 1.13                →  1,130 LBS

What you’ll price:   1,000  × 0.3333 ft  ÷ 27  =  12.34 CY
                     You will price this line in $/CY.

Leave it all blank and the line is simply priced in the unit you measured in — which is right for a great many takeoffs. Clear empties every field at once; Cancel leaves the takeoff exactly as it was.

In the workbook

The conversion becomes a block of columns beside the quantity on the By CSI tab — LENGTH, WIDTH, HEIGHT, EACH, FACTOR, × / ÷, WASTE % — followed by the three that matter on bid day:

• PRICED QTY and PRICED UNIT — the quantity your unit cost multiplies, in the material’s own unit. The extended total is one formula on every row of the workbook: =IF(PRICED QTY<>"", PRICED QTY × TOTAL UNIT COST, QTY × TOTAL UNIT COST) — so a line with a conversion extends off the converted quantity, a line without one extends off its measurement, and no row is doing something different from its neighbours.
• ORDER QTY — how much you buy, rounded up where the material is sold in whole units. It runs the conversion itself rather than reading PRICED QTY, because what you order does not depend on how you priced it.
• Every input in that block is a shaded input cell. Change a paint coverage from 350 to the rate on your actual data sheet, or drop a wall height from 10 ft to 9 ft, and the priced quantity, the order quantity and the extended total all recalculate in place. No need to redo the takeoff.
• A takeoff with no conversion leaves the whole block blank, not zero, and prices on its measurement exactly as it always did. Blank means "not specified"; a zero would claim there is no waste.

16 · Drawing revisions & the revision report

Overlays (§9b) let you put two revisions of a sheet on top of each other and see what moved. Revision tagging turns that picture into a priced answer to the question a GC actually asks: what did this revision cost us?

While comparing overlays, measure the scope that changed and set REVISION at the top of the Name & Categorize dialog:

• Added — scope the new revision introduced. Not in the bid total — it waits for the owner / client to approve it.
• Revised — scope that existed but changed. Stays in the bid total.
• Removed — scope deleted by the revision. Not in the bid total — a credit if the owner / client approves it.
• (not a revision) — ordinary base-bid scope. This is the default and keeps the takeoff out of the revision report entirely.

When anything is tagged, the Excel workbook gains a Revision Summary tab listing each change grouped by status, with a subtotal per group and a NET REVISION IMPACT at the bottom. Removed scope is carried as a credit, so the net figure is the true cost of the change rather than a sum of unrelated numbers. Quantities and costs on that tab are linked to the By CSI master, so pricing entered once flows through and the report can never disagree with your estimate.

Added and Removed are kept out of the bid. On By CSI and every category tab they are priced in their own blocks below the SHEET TOTAL — ADDED SCOPE – pending owner / client approval and REMOVED SCOPE – credit if approved — each with its own total. The Bid Summary lists both under TOTAL BID, and the Executive Summary lists them under TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST, so the owner can approve or reject each one.

17 · Imperial / metric units

Units are chosen on the Home screen and can be toggled in the toolbar. Imperial measures in feet/inches, SF and EA; metric measures in metres, m² and EA. Geometry is unaffected — only the scale factor and unit labels change.