Introduction to Revu 21
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Bluebeam Revu was designed to change the world of PDF as we knew it. We wanted to take away the frustration, confusion, and anxiety associated with taking your workflows digital. Revu 21 offers all the markup tools you need, day in and day out, right on your desktop, a click or two away. It brought breakthrough features such as Tool Chest™, MultiView™, Sync, Dynamic Default™, Compare Documents, Auto-Align, VisualSearch™, File Access™, Links, and Spaces to make your life easier.
Bluebeam has made 3D PDF creation and viewing user-friendly, allowing you to add markups to 3D views. Even better, Bluebeam Revu is the only PDF solution that remembers, virtually eliminating the need to do the same thing twice. When you make an annotation or open a file, Revu remembers. As you work, Revu works. But we didn’t stop there. Revu is fully customizable – from the desktop Profiles, tool sets, and toolbars to the formulas you can enter to create the custom columns in your Markups list, Revu can be all you want it to be. Bluebeam also integrated Revu directly with Microsoft® SharePoint® and Bentley® ProjectWise® so that every file is just a click away. The Bluebeam subscription for Revu 21 comes with access to Bluebeam Cloud and Bluebeam Studio™ to extend the Revu functionality to remote and field experts.
Now, not only can you collaborate with anyone, at any time, anywhere you like, but you can also store and access all your project files in the centralised directory with Bluebeam Studio. Similarly, you can access Bluebeam Cloud on a web or iOS device to access crucial project files, use field tools, and annotate with Bluebeam Cloud's markup editor in a go. On top of everything, Bluebeam Revu Complete. the ultimate version of Revu, adds OCR, PDF form creation and editing, scalable batch processing features, and powerful scripting options for automating multi-step processes from the desktop. It just keeps getting better.
Tips & Tricks
Call out multiple areas on a drawing from a single comment. Place the Callout tool on the PDF, then right-click the arrow and select “Add Leader” to draw additional leader lines. Repeat the steps to point to multiple locations on your drawing.
Apply markups to all pages Right-click your markup and select “Apply to All Pages” to place that markup at the same location on every page in your document.
Automatically auto-size text boxes If you always want your text boxes to be perfectly sized for the text they contain, go to Revu> Preferences> Tools > Markup and select the checkbox “Auto size Text Box and Callout Markups”. Or use keyboard shortcut Alt + Z to auto-size a single markup.
View frequently used tabs and panels on a second monitor Optimise your dual monitor workspace! If you frequently access tabs and panels like the Tool Chest and Markups List, you can click and drag them over to your second monitor so that they are always in view. Then you can also make them as large as you’d like.
Hyperlink your markups To add a hyperlink to any markup, right-click the markup and select “Edit Action” from the context menu, then choose the hyperlink option. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + E.
Open Hyperlinked content in a new document tab Clicking a hyperlink in Revu will take you from your current document into the linked content. However, if you’d like to stay where you are and open the link in a new document tab, simply hold down the Ctrl key while clicking the link.
Check if your PDF is a scanned document or an original vector file For a straightforward way to tell if a new file is a vector or scanned, zoom into the drawing-think 800%+. If it begins to pixelate, it’s scanned. If it stays crisp, it’s a vector. You can also try highlighting the text in a document. Vector documents will allow for text to be selected, while scanned documents will only recognize text if OCR has been run. Vector files allow you to snap to content to quickly get the most accurate measurements, so we recommend asking for vector files instead of scans whenever possible.
Export PDFs to Word or Excel format You can bring your PDF back to Microsoft® Word or Excel® by going to File > Export and then pick your preferred export file type. This is especially useful if you need to make any changes to a text-based document but only have the PDF version.
Collaborate with your project partner using Studio Project or Studio SessionsTo get started, click on the Bluebeam Studio icon on the Panel Access and create a new account. Once logged in, you can use Studio Projects or Studio Sessions. Studio Projects is a single centralized location to store documents in the cloud. Studio Sessions let project teams review, mark up, and update the same files at the same time, allowing partners worldwide to connect on the same set of documents.
Apply scales to your toolsetsGo to the Tool Chest panel, choose the toolset you’d like to create a scale for, and select Properties > Set Scale. This allows your tools to automatically scale in relation to any calibrated drawing or viewport they are placed in. For example, a symbol in a toolset configured with a baseline scale of 1″ = 1′ becomes proportionately smaller when placed on a document set to 1″ = 10′ scale.
Combine, reorder, insert, delete, copy, extract, number or even rotate pages from the Thumbnails panel. Reorder pages within the panel by using a simple drag and drop method. Copy pages and paste them to a new location, or access other pages assembly options by right-clicking on the thumbnail view.
Use headers & footers to add text or a date to all the pages in a document, or auto-sequence page numbers and Bates numbers.
Colour processing options enable you to change or strip colours in your PDF. Revu 21 includes several colour processing options, such as modifying colours, grayscale, and black-and-white, as well as the ability to adjust the luminosity, saturation, and hue of colours.
Revu gives you two options for removing PDF content: Erase Content to erase content for good or Cut Content to remove the underlying content and paste it elsewhere. You can drag your mouse to create a perfect rectangle or pick points to create a more applicable shape.
Attach or embed files in your PDF to create a complete package of documents. Either insert a file into the PDF itself so that it has a visible icon on the document or embed the file in the document without a visible icon through the File Properties option.
Zoom versus page down. If you select Single Page Mode to view a document, the mouse wheel defaults to zoom in/out. If you select Continuous Mode, the centre mouse wheel defaults to page scroll. You can even select your default preferences.
Use PDF Packages to organise project files and folders in a single PDF container to easily share them electronically. Despite the name, any type of file can be included in a PDF package.
Click on the Snapshot tool to copy an area of a PDF. The content is saved to your clipboard, keeping the vector data and image quality of the original. Paste the Snapshot in another area of the PDF or on another PDF.
Select multiple markups using the Lasso tool or simply right-click, hold, and drag the cursor across multiple markups.
Change the colours of grouped or multi-selected markups in a flash. Once selected, right-click select Properties and click Change Colours. Go from red to blue in under 2.
Grid shows the grid on the workspace. Snap will snap markup endpoints to the Grid. Content will snap to the underlying content (assuming content is vector). Markup snaps to other markups in the PDF. Reuse will eliminate the need to select the same tool repeatedly. Sync will synchronise all split views so that you can pan and zoom multiple views of the same (or different) files at the same time.
Add curves to polylines and polygons by right-clicking on a line or control point and selecting Convert to Arc. Add and subtract control points, too.
Right-click callout and select Add Leader to create one callout annotation with multiple leader lines.
Crop images you’ve inserted to the PDF from the Properties panel to display just what you want.
Rotate markups by grabbing the orange control point at the top of a markup. Hold the Shift key down to rotate to an exact point.
The Dimmer is very useful when reviewing markups on a colour PDF. Look for the light bulb in the lower right corner of the interface.
Tablet users can pan and zoom with their pen by double-tapping on the screen to pull up the zoom control. Drag your pen up ( + ) or down ( - ) to zoom in/out. Move the pen outside of the zoom control and pan as normal. Revu includes pressure sensitivity and ink copy/paste interoperability with Journal and OneNote.
Import Tool sets from www.bluebeam.com/extensions. Bluebeam is frequently creating and updating tool sets, just because we're cool and helpful like that. Don’t see what you’re looking for? Request it - or any feature, really - at suggestions@bluebeam.com
Select one of Revu's templates (such as Fax, Invoice, RFI, etc.) or a special page style (notebook, grid and more). You can even import your own PDF templates, too.
Can’t find what you’re looking for? Don’t worry our webinars will encompass all this and more. Our very own industry leading Bluebeam Certified Instructor Troy DeGroot has you covered. Make sure to sign up for our webinars today to learn more about specific topics as well as many more neat tips and tricks you can use to streamline your Bluebeam Revu experience!