Marked-Up Plan printing
Partly availableSome of what this page describes is in DimSum today and some is still coming. Parts marked Coming are designed but not built yet.
Print or export (PDF) your plan pages with every color-coded takeoff drawn on them, an automatic legend, and your own legend and info boxes, so the customer gets a clean marked-up plan with the job's information on it.
Overview
DimSum does this in two steps of increasing power:
- Quick print: print or PDF the current page as you see it, with a simple auto legend. This is in the first prototype because it's part of every takeoff.
- Marked-Up Plan report: a report type in the Report Designer that combines any pages, auto legends, custom legend boxes, info boxes bound to project/customer properties, screenshots and photos into one document.
Customers only ever receive reports, marked-up plans and the 3D view file; never the .dsum.
Where to find it
| Place | What it does |
|---|---|
Print button on the Page tab / Ctrl+P | Quick print or PDF of the current page (or pages you pick) with the auto legend |
| Preview, beside Export PDF… in that dialog | The sheet the export will make, page for page, under the settings as you change them — |
| File → Print / Export PDF | Same, from the menu |
| Reports tab → Marked-Up Plan templates | Full marked-up plan documents (your own templates) |
| Media panel | Screenshots and photos you can add to a marked-up plan |
| Page Settings → Protected | Password-protected pages, which are left out of prints |
How to use it
Quick print the current page
- Open the page and set up the view: turn Color Off (grayscale plan) so the takeoff colors pop, hide any tools you don't want printed.
- Press Print (
Ctrl+P). - Choose Pages: current page, a level, all pages, or a custom list.
- Choose Paper size (Letter, Legal, Tabloid 11×17, ARCH C/D, custom) and Scale: Scale to fit or True scale.
- Tick Auto legend and choose where it goes (a corner, or "fit in free space"). Each row reads pattern swatch · instance name (including its Report Section) · quantity + unit · color swatch.
- Choose Include: takeoffs, dimensions, notes, highlights, stamps, clouds, text (each on/off, each starting as its Show switch has it), and Takeoff lengths, and Labels. Scale regions is ticked to begin with: each part of the sheet measured at another scale prints as on screen — a dashed outline with its scale in a chip, under the takeoff. Untick it to leave them off. See Page tools → scale regions.
- Preview (below) to see the sheet before you commit to it, then Print or Save as PDF (to the
Exports/folder by default).
Preview before you export
Preview sits beside Export PDF… in the print dialog, and turns the sheet on and off under the settings.
It is not a picture of the print — it is the print. The dialog builds one print job and hands the same one to both buttons, and the preview draws it through the same sheet builder that makes the PDF. So the header, the plan box in inches, the takeoff, the labels, the legend and the footer are one thing seen twice:
- Change paper, orientation, scale mode or any of the Include ticks and the preview changes under the hand that changed it.
- More than one page previews as more than one sheet of paper, each captioned Page n of m with the sheet's name.
- The paper itself is drawn from the same three numbers the PDF's page is given — width, height and margin — so the two cannot disagree about what will come out.
What it cannot show, and says so. The plan pixels. The PDF renders those at 150–300 DPI in the main process, which the dialog has no way to ask for. So the preview draws the canvas's own cached backdrop tile for that page — at most 512 px on its long edge, and greyed by the PDF's own arithmetic when Grayscale plan is on — and a note under the preview says the plan is softer here than the export will be. A page the canvas has never visited has no tile, and previews with the sheet builder's own sentence, the one the exported PDF prints in the same case: "Plan pixels are not available for this page."
It queues nothing. The preview only reads the tile cache and never asks for a tile, so opening it can never cancel the canvas's own work going on behind the dialog.
Walls print at their Line Width
- As its full-width band, at the real width for the sheet's scale — the same shape as on screen, from the same geometry: each span on its own side (a span flipped with
Ctrlprints flipped), mitred corners within a side and a plain joint where the side changes. - Filled solid in the item's colour, with no outline, so the printed band is exactly its width. The spans of a wall are joined into one shape, so there are no seams between them, and it stays vector — sharp at any zoom in the PDF.
- Labels stay where they were, at the first point of each span.
- On an unscaled page a Line Width has no size, so those items print as a centreline, as before — and the print dialog says so: ⚠ ‹page› is unscaled, so ‹items› print as a centerline — a Line Width has no size until the page is scaled.
- The legend shows a banded tool with a solid swatch, as every Linear row already did.
- A Linear with no Line Width, and every area and count, prints as before.
Also fixed: an area's cutout prints as a hole. It used to print as a filled shape on top of its own hole; the print no longer draws the cutout as a shape of its own, just as the canvas doesn't.
Page tools on the print
- Turned pages print turned. A page you rotated or straightened prints that way, at true scale when True scale is picked: one inch on the plan is still one inch of paper. The plan and the takeoff turn together, and labels stay upright.
- Orientation: Auto follows the turned shape. A sideways sheet turned 90° prints portrait if it now stands tall.
- The look carries over. Fade, Contrast and Brightness print as set, and Text Off prints the plan with its text hidden.
- Not printed: an overlay shown over the page. In split view, Print starts on the focused pane's page.
- A blank page has no plan to tone, so only its takeoff and turn print.
Markups, dimensions and takeoff lengths on the print
The Include ticks gain Takeoff lengths and one per kind — Dimensions, Notes, Highlights, Stamps, Clouds, Text:
- Each starts as the screen has it: as its Show switch is set (at the foot of Markup ▾). Hide the clouds on screen, and Clouds starts unticked. A tick you change yourself wins.
- Takeoff lengths starts from the Show ▸ Takeoff lengths switch, and prints each span's length where the screen shows it (the item's, the tool's and this computer's settings, as on screen).
- Hidden markups (
Ctrl+H) follow the Hidden tools tick, as hidden takeoff does.
How they print:
- As vector, over the plan, as the takeoff is — sharp at any zoom in the PDF. A dimension's text and the length labels are real text in the PDF.
- At their size on the sheet, so they scale with the print exactly as the plan's own text does: true size at true scale, smaller on a fit-to-paper print.
- Highlights print under the takeoff with multiply, so the plan and the takeoff read through them; everything else prints over it.
- Takeoff lengths print as the same box at the same size on the sheet. On paper nothing is left out for being small; only a span shorter than its own box goes without, and overlaps are dropped as on screen.
- Notes print as their pins, numbered, and the notes are listed by number in a Notes box under the legend, each with its text, status, author and date.
- Fields on a Text or a Stamp print filled in:
{Today}as the print date (Oct 1, 2026),{User > Name}as the Windows user name. - Turned pages: markups turn with the sheet; a note's pin, a dimension's text and the length labels stay upright.
- Never in the legend. The legend lists takeoff items only.
- A dimension on an unscaled page prints as it shows, Unscaled ⚠.
Later: print layers, and one page printed several times with different layers.
Build a Marked-Up Plan template
- Reports → New Report Template → type: Marked-Up Plan.
- Page source: which pages print (all plan pages of every level, a level, a list, or "ask when run"). Pages print in Project Tree order (lowest level first).
- Plan area: the plan fills the page (or a region of it). Options: scale to fit / true scale, grayscale plan. (The page tools' turn and look apply here too; there's no Crop.)
- Auto legend box: drag it anywhere on the sheet. The shipped row format is pattern swatch · instance name incl. its Report Section · quantity + unit · color swatch (see "Legend row format" below). Which columns appear, their order, sorting and grouping are all settings, as is the quantity property (
{Linear Total},{Area},{Count}…). Choose "tools on this page" or "tools on all printed pages". - Custom legend boxes: add your own boxes with any text and swatches, e.g. "Dark Teal = 10' exterior walls, 2x6 @ 16"".
- Info boxes: square title/info boxes bound to properties:
{Company > Logo},{Company > Name},{Job > Name},{Job > Customer},{Job > Address},{Job > Job #},{User > Name},TODAY(),{Page > Name},{Level > Name}, page version. - Extra pages: add screenshots and photos from the Media library (2D or 3D captures, site photos) and attachments, each on its own page or placed on a plan sheet.
- Save the template to your
.tsum. Add it to your "End of job" report set so it prints with your count sheet and POS export in one click.
Legend row format
One row per takeoff instance on the printed page(s), in this shape:
▨ Walls 2x6x9' Exterior — F. Main Level Walls 59.0 FT ■
▨ Floor Joist 2x10 @ 16" — D. Main Level Floor 1,245.0 SF ■
▨ Post Base 6x6 — A. Hardware 4.0 EA ■| Column | Contents |
|---|---|
| Pattern swatch | The instance's fill pattern / hatch as drawn |
| Instance name | The name including its Report Section, so the customer sees which package the item belongs to. |
| Quantity + unit | The instance's quantity with its unit, to one decimal (59.0 FT, 4.0 EA) |
| Color swatch | The instance's line/fill color as drawn |
Which columns appear, their order, sorting and grouping are all settings on the legend box; the above is the default. The decimal places and unit labels follow the project's display precision settings.
Labels on the print
Labels print as drawn on the plan. DimSum doesn't re-format them for printing. The print works them out with the very same steps the screen uses, so paper can't disagree with the plan:
- every part of the label prints: its text, its symbols, its box and its leader line, as vector;
- a label you dragged prints where you dragged it, and labels that would overlap are moved or left out just as on screen;
- nothing is left out for being small: there's no zoom on paper. And every label's values are worked out before it prints, so a label never prints with only its fixed words;
- a turned page prints its labels turned with it, still upright;
- a value that can't be worked out prints as ERROR in red, as on screen;
- a hidden item's labels follow the Hidden tools tick, and an item whose tool has no label template prints no label;
- where labels sit follows this computer's System Settings → Labels, as the screen does;
- each generated joist or rafter shows its own length, and a beam what its tool's label template says, e.g.
(2) 2x10 (2 Ply @ 8 FT); treated or special members show whatever call-out the template includes.
A Labels tick under Include starts from the Show → Labels switch (at the foot of Markup ▾), as Takeoff lengths does. What a label says, and where it sits, is set per tool on the Tool Designer's Label tab (Design a tool's label). The print only chooses whether labels are included at all.
Joist areas, break lines and names on the print
No border on a joist area.
Why it was 1.5": every area printed its outline at a fixed 2.2 points on the sheet. At 1/4" = 1'-0" that measures about 1 1/2" of plan, so it read as a real width. Nothing behind it was 1 1/2"; the match with the joist width was a coincidence.
Every other area prints exactly as before.
Why "Linear 1" printed: the Takeoff labels tick (on by default) printed an item's name at the first point of each shape, for any item whose tool has no label template, such as the basic Linear tool. A Linear item keeps one span per shape, so the name landed at every corner. With Labels unticked, every item printed its name. The canvas never draws a bare name.
The Takeoff labels tick is gone from the print dialog's Include box, and nothing prints an item's bare name any more. Labels off now means no labels at all.
To print a name, turn that item's label on (its tool's label template, or Show label). It then shows on screen too, so paper never shows what the plan doesn't.
A beam prints at its real Member Width, with its break line as a thin dark-grey dashed hairline, one per span (6" dashes, 3" gaps, at the beam's scale).
A hanger at a joist end with no beam prints its short tick, once, like the others.
A joist area's Show area and Show joists switches carry to the print: a hidden area prints no fill, hatch or area label; hidden joists print no joists, rim, hanger marks or joist labels. The legend and the quantities don't change.
Print with protected pages
Pages marked Protected are covered by one optional password per project. A protected page still counts in quantities, but it is left out of marked-up plans and prints (and hidden everywhere else) until the password is entered. Enter it when prompted at print time to include those pages.
Options & settings
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Pages | Current page, a level, all, custom list, or "ask when run" | Current page (quick print) |
| Paper size | Letter, Legal, Tabloid, ARCH C/D, A-sizes, custom | From Settings → Reports |
| Orientation | Portrait / Landscape / Auto | Auto |
| Scale | Scale to fit / True scale (e.g. 1/4" = 1'-0") | Scale to fit |
| Grayscale plan | Greys the plan of every page left in full colour. A page with its own Color Off look (Gray, Faded, Blueprint), Fade, Contrast, Brightness or Text Off prints as set (above). | Ticked |
| Include annotation types | Takeoffs, dimensions, notes, highlights, stamps, clouds, text, detail callouts (later).: one tick per kind (above) | Each as its Show switch has it on screen |
| Takeoff lengths | Print the lengths along each span and edge, as the box on screen | As Show ▸ Takeoff lengths has it |
| the tick is gone and no item's bare name prints; an item's name prints only through its label, and Labels off means no labels at all (above) | *Gone * | |
| Hidden tools | Print hidden tools or not. hidden markups follow it too | Not printed |
| Scale regions | Print each scale region — dashed, labelled with its scale, under the takeoff — or not. | On |
| Labels | Print each tool's labels as drawn (text, symbols, boxes and leaders; (2) 2x10 (2 Ply @ 8 FT) on beams), or leave them off. (above) | Starts from Show → Labels until you change it |
| Auto legend | On/off, position, contents and column order, scope (page / all printed pages) | On: pattern swatch · name incl. Report Section · qty + unit · color swatch |
| Custom legend boxes | Your own boxes and text | |
| Info boxes | Property-bound title/info boxes | From the template |
| Media & attachments | Screenshots, photos, attached files | None |
| Protected pages | Excluded unless the password is entered | Excluded |
| Preview | Show the sheet the export will make, under the settings as you change them. The plan behind the takeoff is the canvas's cached tile, so it is softer than the export | Off until you press it |
| Trial watermark | "DimSum Trial" on every printed/PDF page during the trial | Automatic in trial |
Examples
Framing: main floor walls for the customer
Main Level page, Color Off, tools shown:
| Tool | Color | Quantity on this page |
|---|---|---|
| Ext Wall 2x6 – 10' | Dark Teal (from the Wall Type list) | 142'-6" |
| Int Wall 2x4 – 9' | Orange | 210'-0" |
| Flush Beam LVL | Red | 3 beams |
| Floor Joist 2x10 @ 16" | Light Blue | 1,245 sf |
The auto legend prints four rows in this format — pattern swatch, name including its Report Section, quantity + unit to one decimal (142.5 FT, 210.0 FT, 3.0 EA, 1,245.0 SF), color swatch. The Ext Wall color is Dark Teal automatically because the wall's color is driven by its Wall Type list.
Legend totals across two printed levels: Ext Wall 2x6 on Main (142'-6") + Second (128'-0") = 270'-6" when the legend scope is "all printed pages".
Scale to fit vs. true scale
A 24" × 36" sheet drawn at 1/4" = 1'-0", printed on 11" × 17":
- Scale to fit: the limiting ratio is min(11 ÷ 24, 17 ÷ 36) = min(0.458, 0.472) = 45.8%, so the drawing is no longer at a standard scale. DimSum prints "Not to scale (45.8% of 1/4" = 1'-0")" in the info box.
- True scale at half size: choose 1/8" = 1'-0" (50%) and DimSum tiles or crops: 24 × 0.5 = 12" and 36 × 0.5 = 18", which doesn't fit 11 × 17, so it warns and offers Tabloid "fit" or ARCH B (12" × 18").
Low-voltage: device layout
An electrician prints each floor with "Data Drop" (blue circles, 22), "Camera" (red triangles, 6) and "Cat6 Run" (green lines, 186 LF). The legend uses symbols as well as colors, so it still reads in black-and-white.
Tips & shortcuts
- Turn Color Off on busy colored plans before printing; takeoff colors stand out much better.
- Drive colors from a list (Wall Type → color) so every job's marked-up plan uses the same color language.
- Put the info box and legend in your template once; every job prints the same way.
- Add a 3D screenshot page for customers who don't read plans well.
- Use "ask when run" for the page source when different customers need different pages.
Rules, limits & edge cases
- Protected pages never print without the password.
- Detail pages print like any other page (no 3D involved).
- Very large sheets on small paper are scaled to fit unless True scale is chosen; true scale warns when the sheet won't fit.
- A Line Width on an unscaled page prints as a centreline, and the dialog warns which items, per page.
- A cutout prints as a hole in its area, never as a filled shape of its own.
- Hidden tools don't print by default. Hidden markups follow the same tick.
- Markups and Dimension Lines are never legend rows.
Related features
- Report Designer
- Export Profiles
- Takeoff tools · Wall tools (color by Wall Type)
- 3D viewport (screenshots, 3D view file)
- Search, Media, Attachments & Protected pages
- Page Versions
- Page tools (Rotate, Straighten, Color/Text On/Off, Fade)
- Annotation tools (stamps, clouds, detail callouts)
- Licensing (trial watermark)
