Uploading Drawings

Before you upload

Every drawing lives inside a Category, so a project needs at least one category before it can accept files. A new project has none. Click Add Category in the header, give it a name, and the upload controls appear inside it. See Organising with categories.

Only PDF files are accepted. Anything else is ignored by the picker and filtered out of a drop. See Supported file types.

Where the upload controls are

Each category has its own upload zone, so whatever you drop lands in that category:

• Grid view — a dashed tile reading Upload or drag file to start , with a smaller Choose folder button beneath it. The whole card is a drop target.
• List view — dashed Add file and Choose folder buttons at the bottom of the category row. The row shows a highlighted ring while you drag over it.
• Select Drawing panel — when a drawing is already open, the breadcrumb's drawing name opens a side panel with an Add more files zone under every category. It reads Drop files here while you drag.

Uploading by drag and drop

1. 1

   Find the PDFs in your file explorer.

2. 2

   Drag them onto the category you want them in. The category highlights while the files are over it.

3. 3

   Release. Each drawing appears immediately with an Uploading spinner, and a progress toast counts them in.

You can also drop a whole folder. Browsers that cannot read dropped folders show Folder upload not supported; use Choose folder instead.

Uploading with the file picker

1. 1

   Click Upload or drag file to start (grid) or Add file (list) in the category.

2. 2

   Select one or more .pdf files in the picker. Hold Ctrl or Shift to pick several.

3. 3

   Confirm. The drawings appear in the category and start uploading.

Importing a folder

Choose folder imports every PDF in a folder, including its subfolders, in one go. A Scanning folder… toast shows while ZeroCount reads it.

• Files in a subfolder are named after their immediate parent folder, so Mechanical/Layout.pdf and Electrical/Layout.pdf become Mechanical - Layout.pdf and Electrical - Layout.pdf rather than colliding. Files at the top level keep their plain names.
• If the folder totals more than 50 drawings (counted after multi-page splitting), an Import folder confirmation tells you how many PDFs and drawings it found and asks Import all of them? Click Import all or Cancel.
• Non-PDF files are skipped. A folder with no PDFs shows No PDFs found.
• One folder imports at a time. Starting another shows A folder is still importing; wait for the first to finish.

What happens to each file

1. Multi-page PDFs are split into one drawing per page, named Layout - Sheet 01.pdf, Layout - Sheet 02.pdf and so on. A toast reads Drawing set split. Sets over 25 pages are refused with Too many pages.
2. The revision is read from the filename. Names containing Rev 3, RevC, Rev-2, Rev P1, (Rev 4), _R3 or -R2 set the drawing's Rev badge; anything else starts at Rev 0. Every sheet of a split set inherits the same revision. You can change it later by clicking the badge.
3. Duplicate names are made unique with a suffix.
4. Sideways vector drawings are turned upright when the preference Auto-rotate drawings on upload is on. A toast reads Rotated to read upright.
5. A thumbnail and the paper size are generated, and the drawing is checked for vector data so it can show a vector or image badge.
6. The file is sent to the server. A grey placeholder holds the slot until the thumbnail is ready, and the new drawing is ticked automatically so Submit can open it straight away.

Size limit

Each PDF must be under roughly 11 MB. A larger file is refused before it is sent, with a Drawing too large toast that states the file's size. Reduce the PDF (lower raster resolution, or remove embedded images) and try again.

While a drawing is uploading

A drawing marked Uploading cannot be opened, ticked, rotated, moved or deleted until the server confirms it. Pressing Submit with one selected shows Upload in progress; a bulk action shows Some files skipped and leaves the uploading files alone.

Common issues

A file did not appear

Non-PDFs are filtered out silently. If you dropped six files and four arrived, the missing two were not PDFs. A PDF that cannot be read shows Drawing not uploaded.

The upload failed

If the connection drops mid-upload, the toast reads Drawing not uploaded with the reason, and the failed drawing is removed from the list so you can upload it again. If the server has not confirmed an upload after 90 seconds you see The server did not confirm the upload; check your connection and upload the file again.

Next steps

• Supported file types — vector versus image PDFs, page limits and auto-rotation.
• Organising with categories — create, rename and reorder the categories your drawings sit in.
• Drawing cards and badges — what the Rev, vector and status badges on each new drawing mean.
• Opening a drawing — tick a drawing and open it in the takeoff workspace.