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overlay multiple documents

LKW1

I'm relatively new to Bluebeam & need some assistance with overlays. When we submit our approval drawings, some architects are requiring us to do overlays of our drawings over theirs. I am trying to overlay an original pdf with 2 regions from 2 other drawings (1 region from each overlay pdf). I cannot get it to work correctly no matter what I try. What am I doing wrong? Is this even possible? TIA

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LKW1

Since I have access to the CAD files for our drawings, I imported the customer pdfs to CAD & overlaid everything inside that program. I appreciate the help from everybody!

All comments

Dhanush Kodi Raj

Yes, this is possible 👍

I think the tricky part here is that Overlay Pages normally works with full pages. If you only want to overlay specific regions from two different PDFs onto one original PDF, you’ll need a slightly different workflow.

I would try Crop Pages / Snapshot to isolate the required areas first, then use those as your overlay sources.Also, make sure the drawings have the same scale and alignment points. Even a small difference in scale or positioning can make the overlay look incorrect.If you can share a little more about what you’re trying to achieve with the 2 regions, I’d be happy to suggest the exact Bluebeam workflow.

forrest.simmons

Good morning, LKW1.

If I understand you correctly, you are trying to overlay one smaller region from two individual drawings onto a larger single drawing.

The Overlay pages tool is just that. A tool to overlay pages, not regions. It could probably do the job but I doubt it would be a clean deliverable.

I would try a snapshot (g) then paste it (ctrl-v) onto the larger sheet. You may need to resize it a bit. As long as you only pull on the corner control points it will maintain aspect ratio. You can change colors of the base sheet and snapshot to achieve the Red/Green color scheme of the overlay tool if needed.

Some resources below:

https://university.bluebeam.com/how-to-pdf-content-editing/1744053 ←Snapshot is mentioned in the video.

https://university.bluebeam.com/how-to-color-processing ←If you need to modify the colors of the base image or snapshot.

https://university.bluebeam.com/how-to-overlay-pages ← A quick video of Overlays functionality.

LKW1

More info on what I would like to do: When submitting our approval drawings, some architects are also requesting that we provide overlays of our pdfs on their pdfs. I don't need to include our title block & border, just our drawings in red over theirs in black.

Since our drawings are not to a common scale, I would like to use the overlay command to put 2 different regions of our pdfs onto their pdf, aligning & scaling everything by picking 3 points. One region works like a charm, but sometimes I need to overlay 2 regions onto one sheet.

It looks like I may need to use the Snapshot tool to put in my second overlay or maybe find different software to accomplish what I want to do. It's just so convenient to use the Pick Points method in the Overlay command to align & scale everything.

Josh Gebelein

What you need to do is have your sheet views and scales match. Then the overlay is a simple thing to do. If you can't have your main sheets do that, then create separate coordination-only sheets that are set that way.

AnthonyLara

To build on this reply, instead of using corner control points to adjust the size of the image, with the snapshot selected, you can go into the Properties Panel and directly adjust the scale of the image. This allows the adjustment factor to be calculated based on the comparison between the two scales, rather than arbitrary adjustments via corner points.

LKW1

Since I have access to the CAD files for our drawings, I imported the customer pdfs to CAD & overlaid everything inside that program. I appreciate the help from everybody!