PDF - Recommendation

[Zdenko]

asking the forum for recommended PDF software to use in conjunction with AC27. my experience has been using Bluebeam with Civil3D and found it extremely helpful. I have multiple PDF documents that contain many lines of text and would like to use the PDF software to select text and copy over to AC27. the "preview" option from Apple stinks and is a pain in the rear! the PDF documents have been imported into AC27 to test the "explode into current view" but leaves a blood bath of inconsistent text lines and fonts and takes way too much time to clean up.

we are considering of using the Adobe platform since Bluebeam is not supported by Apple.

Operating system used: Mac Intel-based Sonoma 14.4.1

[JoeA]

While a bit of a roundabout approach, I will sometimes use the text recognition feature of the iPhone camera, copy the clipboard, paste it into note temporarily and then airdrop it to my macbook.  It seems to handle large amounts of text surprisingly well.

Joe A.

(ArchiCAD since 8.0)

[Zdenko]

here i thought we were the only ones to come up with that idea! 🙂

if it was a one off would not complain but unfortunately not a solution for our needs...

[Chloe_DetaStudio]

[Moderator: This post contain a link to a freemium commercial product.]

I hope it is not too late yet. Please use Deta.studio in your workflow. We developed this tool internally as a design office, Mac-based, using Archicad. 

Deta Studio addresses the PDF needs for construction architecture. 

It has all dimension tools, like length, area, and counts. It supports cloud collaboration through markup sessions for remote team reviews. It also has a whiteboard for sketches. I often have my team put an Archicad 3D model screenshot, and then I sketch on it. 

For your workflow: Press shortcut E to activate the text tool, then select the text you wanna copy, double-click, and then ctrl C. 

[Brad Elliott]

The Deta.studio looks interesting. I have been using PDF Expert, it works on Macs and IOS devices. I have had good experiences with it copying text and it also does dimensioning and good job reducing file size which I frequently use. They also seem to be actively updating and improving it unlike other programs.

[Gerald Hoffman]

I use Bluebeam on Mac through Parallels and it works well. I have used it for a long while and was disappointed when they dropped native MacOS support. I use the free Autocad DWG Trueview to check outgoing dwg exports before sending off sometimes as well.

[Oosh]

[Moderator: more freemium suggestions below without links.]

I just started using “PolyPDF” for pdf markups which works on macOS and has a cleaner interface than Bluebeam in my opinion. There is a paid option if you want to be able to use the dimension and takeoff features.

For quick text grabs, I use a Mac app called “Textsniper”. It’s similar to taking a screenshot, but instead of saving an image it copies the text you selected to the clipboard. It’s powerful because you can copy text from images and videos just as you can PDFs.

Hope that helps!