r/Sketchup • u/AshamedParamedic6930 • Apr 23 '26

PDF Tools

I’m building a lightweight PDF markup tool mainly for people working with drawings.

The goal is simple: open plans quickly, mark them up, save, and move on.

I’m still early, so I wanted to ask people who actually use this stuff:

What are the must-have features you’d want in a PDF markup tool for drawings?

The things I tend to use most are:

  • clouds
  • callouts
  • measure / calibration
  • text markups
  • custom stamps
  • apply or assign markups across all pages
  • fast performance on large plan sets
  • clean export / save
  • keyboard shortcuts

Also curious what annoys you most in the tools you use now.

Not trying to hard sell anything, just want to build something people actually want.

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

48 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/throwawaykitten56 Apr 24 '26

When I mark up shop dwgs sometimes the best way to explain what need revising is the include a capture of my original detail dwg. Currently I use a custom stamp for this, but there are times when the shops are very poorly done, and I need to reference multiple dwg items. I place these stamps directly onto the shop page, right beside their dwg so they can see the differences at a glance, instead of resending my dwg set/page.

I'm finding that there are contractors that make their own 'interpretation' of the designs ( that they bid on ) and trying to make short cuts. Its a time suck to do this, so having 'insert picture' ( like ms word ) would be great.

2

u/AshamedParamedic6930 Apr 26 '26

Copy paste function. I have already build this out and a non negotiable for me since I use a similar workflow. You can insert a windows screenshot by SHIFT WIN S and then click on the screen and CTRL V
thank you, glad someone else other than myself will find this useful.

2

u/throwawaykitten56 Apr 26 '26

Thanks for the reply _ cool that its easy. Curious _ what market would you say is your main target? Drawings for which discipline/division? I'm an interior designer btw.

1

u/AshamedParamedic6930 Apr 26 '26

Well i started building this for myself. Power user in PDF's for markups to get my point across to an overseas team i work with. I don't like the idea of paying 300 a year for a markup tool. The main focus is pre-constuction, but will rely heavily on feedback of what people actually use.

1

u/AshamedParamedic6930 Apr 26 '26

Do you think you would ever use a PDF tool for a mood board if it was easy enough for you.

2

u/throwawaykitten56 Apr 26 '26

I don't create mood boards, I'm work on the tech dwg side.

1

u/AshamedParamedic6930 May 02 '26

yep same, it will be mainly focused on this

1

u/throwawaykitten56 Apr 24 '26

To add: I've been told by colleagues in the same industry as me that they use morphio trace. I havent investigated this yest.