PlanDesk

How-to

How to mark up construction drawings on iPad with Apple Pencil

Apple Pencil is the reason to mark up drawings on an iPad instead of a laptop. PlanDesk treats the Pencil as the pen and your finger as the hand that moves the sheet, so you can rest your palm on the screen while you write.

  1. Let the Pencil draw and your finger scroll

    Choose View › Apple Pencil draws, finger scrolls. Your finger then pans and zooms while any tool is picked, and your palm is ignored while you write.

  2. Cloud and note

    Pick Cloud and drag around the area. Pick Text box, tap the sheet and type (or handwrite with Pencil), then tap Add.

  3. Write freehand

    Pick Pen. Lines follow Pencil pressure, and if you hold at the end of a stroke it straightens into a clean line. For calligraphy-style ink, pick the Flat nib in the bar at the top.

  4. Mark up text in the PDF

    Pick Highlight and drag over text in the drawing's notes to highlight, underline, squiggle or strike it out.

  5. Save it back to the PDF

    Tap Save PDF. Markups are written as standard PDF annotations, so anyone with Bluebeam, Acrobat or Preview can see and edit them.

Video lesson: Mark up a drawing (about a minute). It also runs hands-on in the app: Help › Learn PlanDesk.

Tips

  • Handwrite into text boxes with Pencil is in the View menu; turn it off if you'd rather use the keyboard.
  • Copy style and Paste style in the Edit menu make one markup look like another.
PlanDesk is PDF markup and takeoff for construction drawings on iPad, iPhone, Mac and Windows. 7 days free, then $14.99 a month or $119.99 a year. See PlanDesk

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