ForemanFOREMAN

Upload and scale plans

Open a PDF plan set in Foreman's plan editor, set the drawing scale with a preset or two-point calibration, and move between sheets — so every measurement comes out true to size.

Plans live in your project's files. Open one in the plan editor, set its scale, and you can measure straight off the drawing.

Open a plan in the editor

  1. From the sidebar, click Projects and open your project.
  2. Go to the Files tab and upload your plan PDF (or image) if it isn't there yet.
  3. Check the file's row icon. Foreman detects a set of drawings after upload and marks it as a plan set with a blueprint icon; if it guessed otherwise, open the row's Row actions menu and choose Convert to plan set. Only a plan set gets the takeoff, scale and eligible AI tools — regular PDFs and images open with markups alone.
  4. Double-click the file to open it. A single desktop click selects its row; on phones or tablets, a single tap opens it. PDFs and images open directly in the plan editor.

Note

Opened a file and see no takeoff tools? It isn't marked as a plan set. Go back to the Files tab, open the row's Row actions menu and choose Convert to plan set — the editor itself has no switch for this.

Don’t see this?

The plan editor with takeoff and markup tools is for internal team members. People shared in as a client or vendor can view the file but won't see the measuring tools. Uploading or converting a file requires file upload access and a writable folder.

Set the scale

A measurement is only as accurate as the scale. Choose Takeoffs in the mode dropdown to see the scale control, then check the scale of each sheet before you measure.

  1. Most vector plan sets need nothing from you: Foreman reads the dimension strings printed on each sheet, works out the scale they agree on, and applies the matching standard scale. A scale it set shows a small AI badge on the Scale chip; hover it to see how many dimensions agreed. Pages it can't read confidently — scans with no text layer, or a sheet that mixes two scales (the chip reads Mixed scales) — are left for you to set by hand. Detect scale in the Scale control runs the detection again.
  2. To use a known drawing scale yourself, open the Scale control in the toolbar at the top of the editor and pick one of the architectural presets — the whole architect's rule is laid out two to a row, from 1/32" = 1'-0" up to 3" = 1'-0", so there is no tab to click or list to scroll. A scale you set is yours — Foreman never overwrites it.
  3. To calibrate by hand instead, click Calibrate manually… at the bottom of the same Scale control.
  4. Click two points along a dimension you know on the plan — like a printed 20' dimension line.
  5. In the Set Scale dialog, type the real-world Distance and choose the Unit (Feet, Inches, Meters, or Yards). Feet has separate feet and inches boxes; other units use one distance box. Click Set Scale.

Note

If a sheet's page dimensions haven't loaded yet, the Scale control is disabled ("Waiting for the page to load…") — give the page a moment, then try again.

Move between sheets and pages

  1. The page rail starts collapsed. On a multi-page plan, use the floating page switcher at the top-left to step through sheets, or click Show pages to open the thumbnail rail.
  2. Click a thumbnail to jump to its sheet, or search by sheet name or page number. Hide pages collapses the rail again.
  3. Each page keeps its own scale, so calibrate every sheet you plan to measure.

Note

Use the zoom and rotate controls in the editor header to line up tight details before measuring.
NextParameters and measurements