Question

how to colored markup pdf images and cad drawings

Asked by: grakem

Hi Gents and Ladies

We regularly received drawings and need to submit them to clients showing highlighted areas where we are supplying.  We normally simply highlight in pen, label up as phase 1, and phase 2, and then rescan and send.  

I want to make sure that this is all done digitally and was looking for software to do the same thing.  

We need to mark up pdf and cad drawings.. ie create labelled colored box overlays over certain areas of a drawings.  

I have tried various pdf editors including nitro and pdf editor, however it allows us to draw box outlines around images (not colored ) and  allows us to create  hightlighted text. but not whole boxes.  

I can mark it up in Photoshop and do it, however there must be a simpler/ cheaper program to allow our sales people to mark it up.  

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-01-08 at 02:19:05ID24034377
Tags

highlight

,

pdf

,

cad

Topics

CAD & Architecture Software

,

Adobe Acrobat

,

Ghostscript PDF Software

Participating Experts
4
Points
400
Comments
8

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. design a database to store CAD drawings
    Hi Which DBMS can i use to built a databese to store drawings from a CAD software? thanks
  2. programmatically converting auto cad drawings into pdf
    I am using ASP.NET framework version 1.0 and C#. I have some auto cad drawings (.dwg) extentions, can I programatically convert them into pdf? any thoughts? Thanx, Kashif.
  3. CAD FILE DRAWING SIZE
    HI, WHAT'S THE BEST WAY TO TRIM DOWN A FILES SIZE? I HAVE THIS AUTOCADD DRAWING THAT I RECEIVED FROM A FRIEND, WHICH IS ABOUT 7000 KB AND ITS ONLY A 2D DRAWING! ALSO IN CAD DRAWINGS, DOES BLOCKING ITEMS HELP IN ADDING UP TO THE SIZE OF THE FILE?
  4. Need to edit PDF version of CAD derrived architectural dra…
    Hi. I have a set of architectural drawings that were made in CAD and converted into PDF. I just need to edit the drawings to make a minor change in labeling. How can I do this without spending money on an expensive program?

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: captainreissPosted on 2009-01-08 at 07:29:08ID: 23325886

Hi

It really depends on how complex your markups need to be. If you edit the PDFs in Acrobat Pro and enable Commenting and Markups in Adobe Reader than you can get your users to do this from the free Adobe Reader.

For Adobe 7 it is in Document: 'Enable...'

For Adobe 8 and 9 I believe it is done via Enable User Rights in the advanced Menu. You also need to enable commenting from the Comments menu.

Have a look at:
http://www.adobe.com/education/resources/hed/instructional/connect/collaborative_teaching/pdfs/Acrobat_comment_markup.pdf

hth
capt.

 

by: grakemPosted on 2009-01-09 at 01:59:17ID: 23334040

YEs, the problem is that adobe doesn't offer the ability to highlight sections of a drawing using colored boxes with text in it

 

by: darrenmcwiPosted on 2009-01-09 at 16:37:45ID: 23341719

There's a lot utilities that should do this. Try googling "View Markup Redline Plot".

FastLook Plus from Kamel Software is one.

Autodesk has DWF Composer but that doesn't deal with PDF.

Autoview, Brava, etc.


Here's a fairly comprehensive list w/links of most of the mafor ones I"m aware of designed for CAD files...

http://www.tenlinks.com/Cad/products/viewers.htm

 

by: dhsindyPosted on 2009-01-15 at 13:25:13ID: 23387961

We acomplish this by using patterning right in AutoCAD.  You can draw a polyline shape that is closed and pattern the inside with the pattern of your choice.  We use this idea to phase, areas of no work.  You can make layers with names and color them as you desire.

 

by: darrenmcwiPosted on 2009-02-04 at 22:18:02ID: 23556941

Did you still need more help or opinions on this? If so, feel free to post a followup.

 

by: grakemPosted on 2009-02-05 at 08:06:28ID: 23560687

HI all, apologies about delay. Best solution we foudn was to use foxitpdfreader.  You can add colored boxes, and make them transparent and users could proceed with little to no training as its so intuitive.  #The foxit people are also brilliant and they have a super fast reader. Couldn't recommend this solution enough.

Cad drawings have basically been superceded to pdf and done this way however bonus points for all options..

Thanks for the assistance, and apologies for delay.

 

by: captainreissPosted on 2009-02-05 at 09:24:53ID: 23561677

Glad it works for you. hanks for the point consideration.

capt.

 

by: DCADMANPosted on 2009-03-23 at 21:09:57ID: 23964622

I hear that in the new version of AutoCAD, you will be able to add PDF underlays.  So all you will have to do is to markup the pdf files and then underlay the marked-up pdf into AutoCAD to see where the markups are.

It should be coming out sometime this month, so stay tuned!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...