From PDF to Quote in 30 Minutes

The old way of takeoff: print the drawing, grab a scale ruler, trace every wall by hand, write the number on a notepad, type it into a spreadsheet, repeat for 200 walls. That’s a full day for a single floor.

Here’s the modern way.

Step 1: Bring in the Drawing

Drop your PDF into the workspace. The drawing renders as a reference layer — you can pan, zoom, and see every detail. No printing, no scaling errors from a bad printout.

Step 2: Calibrate Scale

This is the one thing you do manually, and it takes 10 seconds. Pick two points on a known dimension — a title block grid line, a door width, any measurement you trust — and enter its real-world length.

Now every pixel on the drawing maps to a real distance. All future measurements are in meters, not “scale units.”

Step 3: Measure with Intent

Switch to the wall tool. Click to start, click at each corner, double-click to finish. The length is captured automatically.

For rooms, switch to the polygon tool. Click around the perimeter, close it, and the area is calculated instantly.

For doors and fixtures, use the count tool. Click each one. Done.

As you measure, the estimate sheet updates in real time. You’re not just collecting numbers — you’re building a bill of quantities.

Step 4: Apply Assemblies

This is where it gets powerful. Instead of pricing every wall individually, you apply an assembly:

• “Standard 100mm Partition Wall” = studs + drywall + insulation + labor
• The assembly knows: 2.4 studs per meter, 2.0 sheets of drywall per meter, 1.2 m² of insulation per meter, 0.45 labor hours per meter

So when you measure 18.4 meters of wall, the assembly automatically generates:

Total for that one wall: £930. And it took one click to apply.

Step 5: Review AI Price Suggestions

For any line item where you don’t have a current price, the AI price searcher kicks in. It queries vendor websites, scrapes current prices, and returns a suggestion with a confidence score and source URL.

You review, accept, or override. The price is stored with its source so you can defend it later.

Step 6: Export the Quote

With the estimate complete, switch to the quote view. It’s already formatted — your company logo, the client’s name, the line items, the totals, the terms. Export as PDF and send.

The Time Breakdown

That’s not a 2x improvement. It’s 12x. And the quality is higher because every number is traceable.

Ready to try modern takeoff? Request early access to BidRok.