What are Mac users using for PDF mark up and measurement?

[Christiaan]

What are you Mac users out there using to mark up and take scaled measurements off PDFs with? I've historically used Preview for mark ups but scaled measurements would be a great help.

[Kevin K]

@Christiaan perhaps you could elaborate or clarify a bit on your query.  I am a little confused.  When you say ‘mark up’ you mean marking up a pdf on its own?    Or marking it up within VW ?  If done within VW you can easily scale it.

 

[elepp]

I loved Bluebeam Revu. Sadly it's no longer developed, though you can still buy it, I think. 😞 That was right what we needed. Now we are using PDF Expert and Adobe Reader. I once did some research about PDF Programms, but good ones for Mac are far and few in between. I would give PDF Studio a go. It has some measurement features.

 

https://kbpdfstudio.qoppa.com/precision-pdf-measuring-tools/

[Jeff Prince]

I use Bluebeam on my Ipad, but I guess those days are numbered.

[rDesign]

I am still using Bluebeam Revu for MacOS, as I bought it back when you still could (which is no longer the case - you can’t buy new licenses).

 

I also use Bluebeam Revu for iOS on my iPad, which as far as I know is still being supported. 

Edited February 4, 2021 by rDesign

[Kevin K]

I guess Christiaan went to bed early. :-) He didn't respond.

Honestly, when I am tasked with doing measurements, annotating PDF's I just import the pdf into VW, make sure the scale is correct, and have at it.

It works well.  Then just publish it if need be.

I have been using an app called PDFpenPro.  I has measurement capabilities, but not really ready for prime time. Other than that, it is a pretty good all around PDF app.

 

Maybe Acrobat Pro could do measurements, but I sort of jumped ship on them when my version no longer worked after upgrading my Mac OS.

[Art V]

Acrobat Pro can do measurements, you have an option to set the scale so that you can have real world distances.

Too bad they dropped support for MacOS as I think it is better than Acrobat Pro for those in engineering etc.

[Taproot]

 

7 hours ago, elepp said:

Now we are using PDF Expert and Adobe Reader.

 

We're also using PDF Expert on our iPads.  It's not really optimized for dimensions (i.e. no dedicated dimension tool), but we use it for in-house redlines, Existing Conditions Drawings - field notes & measurements, etc.

 

I had been using Bluebeam, but it was time consuming getting data imported and exported out of the program.  PDF Expert works directly with our files in the Cloud.  The apple pencil works seamlessly, and the user interface works well.

[LarryO]

I was also going to suggest looking into Pdf Pen Pro, partially because of the cost and my frustrating experience when trying to use Adobe's Acrobat Pro.

But alas I don't have that concern anymore, I was moved to a Win PC and have access to BlueBeam Revu again.

 

Now I have to deal with having to press "escape" or click the main drawing window after editing in nearly every palette before a keyboard shortcut works. Whereas before I could have simply pressed X or the particular short cut key on the Mac and the tool would become active.

[matteoluigi]

On 2/4/2021 at 3:22 PM, elepp said:

I loved Bluebeam Revu

yeah, I still can't understand, why they canceled their mac Version... 😞 it's a pity somehow...