Export or publish a set with filtered markups

This might be a really obvious one but I can't seem to figure out the best way to do this:

I frequently mark up drawing sets for estimates wherein there are multiple pass-through trades under my scope. What I want to do is to be able to do takeoffs for multiple trades, giving them each their own layer that represents them, and when I'm done with the takeoff I want to export or save out a version of the pdf that includes only their markups.

It doesn't matter to me whether I can do it by turning off the layers or filtering the markups list. I just want to know what the developers' intended workflow is for this type of case. Right now I'm literally deleting all other markups than the ones I want to share, then saving as a new pdf. But that's pretty tedious and error prone.

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David Cutler

Interesting question @Thomas Luedke. What is your objective in deleting the markups from the other scopes?

If you don't want to share them with the other trades at all then deleting is probably the only option.

If you don't want the markups to be a distraction your could turn off the layers that you don't want displayed and then save that layer configuration as the default before you distribute the document. That way the markups would still be there, but they wouldn't be displayed by default.

If you want to delete them quickly you could filter or sort your markups list by the layer you want to delete, select them all at once and then delete them in one move.

Hope this helps. 😎

Thomas Luedke

Our markups include information about pricing that is for internal use only.

In some cases, it's not so much that I don't want to share markups with others, it's just that they're irrelevant to them and potentially distracting. Especially for users who don't have Bluebeam or another advanced PDF reader that may lack support for layers.

David Cutler

Thank you for the insight into your workflow @Thomas Luedke. We typically do not share our marked up PDFs in our workflow, rather we share a quantity summary that we create from the markup summary.

Nuttle

@Thomas Luedke We frequently need to share a large variety of markups with different subcontractors. Sending all markups at once often overwhelms subs, especially when most of the information does not apply to their trade scope. After testing several methods—including flattening PDFs, extracting pages, and turning layers on and off—we found that these approaches still transfer all markups, even when filters and layers are set to a specific trade. Because of this, deleting markups or maintaining multiple versions of the same file is not a reliable or efficient solution. The most effective workaround we have found uses Filter Lists combined with the Snapshot Tool. While not perfect, this method is significantly better than deleting markups and allows us to isolate and share only the information relevant to a specific trade.

1. Filter Markups by Trade

Open the Markups List
Apply filters to show only the markups needed for the specific trade
Save the filter for future use

2. Flatten Markups (Filtered Only)

Go to Document tab → Flatten
Under Markups, make sure:
- ☑ Allow Markup Recovery (Unflatten) is checked
- ☑ Exclude Filtered Markups is selected
Flatten the document

This ensures only the visible (filtered) markups are flattened and shared.

3. Create a New Blank PDF

Go to File tab → New PDF
Select Current Page to match the original page/document size
If more than one page is needed, adjust the page count accordingly

4. Snapshot and Paste

Use the Snapshot Tool
Select the exact size of the document area you want to share
Go to the new blank document
Right-click → Paste
Align the perimeter of the snapshot with the new blank page
Click outside the area to complete the paste

Doug McLean

Best way to do this is to Filter your Markups list accordingly, then hit select all, then from your Thumbnails panel click on one of the selected files (it will have a blue border) and hit Extract Pages (ctrl+shift=X)

Just don't delete the files after export.
Repeat as necessary.

Thomas Luedke

This did not work for me. It extracted the pages that contained filtered markups, along with all other markups on those pages.

Doug McLean

at that point you can delete the other markups from the drawings as you have a baseline set.

Or you can simply turn off those other layers and lock them off.

Mr Simon W Robinson

We have exactly this problem too. After twice having to delete layers then accidentally clicking Save not Save As. I've just resorted to sending the client the entire thing and letting them sort it out.

Maybe I'm getting old and cantankerous. Give all these stupid issues that are presumably an easy fix. I'd rate Bluebeam as the least-rubbish software for doing this kind if work.

David Cutler

@Mr Simon W Robinson perhaps a slight adjustment in your workflow could avoid these issues? Instead of removing the unneeded markups and then performing a "save as" complete the save as first, then delete the unneeded markups. It's a minor tweak, but might save some extra work/heartache!

Hope this helps. 😎

Mr Simon W Robinson

Did I not just say exactly that?

I added all the layers and clicked save
I removed some layers
I then wanted to do Save As, but accidentally clicked Save
This over writ the file with all layer with one with some missing
I then spend over an hour redoing the layers

The point is that this seems to be a common requirement. I think all we'd want is an option to go File→Export to PDF → Only export selected layers.

What is ridiculous is having to create multiple saved versions of the same file. Like I'm still using Office 97 on Windows Me…

Thomas Luedke

Simon I think he's saying to save the copy first then make edits to the copy. It's a good best practice for any kind of workflow that could result in substantial time loss due to human error. Bluebeam definitely lacks a pretty useful feature here and I'm extremely surprised that there's not an easier or more developer-intended way to achieve this.

Greg Irwin

Doubling down on this feature request but for anew use case. I do @Nuttle's approach with phasing diagrams. but i use layers and then configurations to save mark ups to a layer. I paste the snapshot into PowerPoint so I can slide through the visuals of a site changing.

what should be so easy is to export those saved configurations with the filtered markups to a Flatten PDF without any of the unfiltered content. would then be able to export a single page that could have that trade's info or my case that phasing info.

AnthonyLara

I could see something like this being incredibly helpful. For example, A general Contractor estimating multiple scopes on a project. My Masonry reviewer doesn't care about my Concrete markups and visa-versa. A tool that exported only the Filtered Markups and the pages relevant to those would quickly allow me share a "takeoff set" that applies specifically to the trade in question. What you describe here would be a great tool, almost a combination of "Filtered Markups" and "Extract pages". How I am imagining the workflow on this would be to first Filter Markups in the traditional way, but then a new feature/option could be added to the "summary export" button on the markup list for "Filtered Markup summary" or similar.

Thomas Luedke

Yeah this is pretty much my exact use case. We're a wood shop but the work is custom enough that I pass lots of work to sheet metal shops, countertop subs, upholsterers and it's very frequently a workflow for me to mark up their scope and serve them something that assists in or even in some cases replaces their takeoff and gets me pricing like 10x faster than if I sent them a blank set of prints and said "figure it out".

Mr Simon W Robinson

Exactly. We shouldn't have to mess around creating multiple files…

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