Bluebeam Software - Alternate to Adob...

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Author Message Wayne Yancey Senior Member Username: wyancey Post Number: 125 Registered: 05-2005 Posted on Wednesday, May 03, 2006 - 10:56 am:    Does anyone have experience with Bluebeam Software for creating simple PDF files? Particularly Bluebeam Lite with Revu. Thanks Wayne Nathan Woods, CCCA Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 86 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Wednesday, May 03, 2006 - 11:15 am:    I'm using it right now. I downloaded it about 2 weeks ago and have made it my default. I have been looking for a low cost alternative to Acrobat that allows advanced editing for quite some time. I really like this Bluebeam + Revue package. It's quite possibly even BETTER than Acrobat 7.0. My IT group loves that it's server deployable. My Accounting group loves that it's only a fraction of the cost, and I love the fact that it allows me to annotate PDF'd RFI's and Submittals slick and easy. David Oglesby, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP Intermediate Member Username: wdeo_specs Post Number: 4 Registered: 03-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - 07:15 pm:    Have it, use it, love it. (Adobe is on my s___ list for charging me $ to undo a problem their software caused while I was evaluating a trial version - it took less time to describe how to fix the problem than it took to take my payment info. It'll be a cold day in you know where before I buy anything from them.) Support is only an email away. Watch out however if you add markups or other stuff to PDF's (which is easy by the way) and send to others for printing. Bluebeam has a "flatten" feature that keeps everything showing in the printout. Without using it some printers default to print only the original PDF and omit your additions. Sheldon Wolfe Senior Member Username: sheldon_wolfe Post Number: 216 Registered: 01-2003 Posted on Tuesday, December 19, 2006 - 10:35 pm:    My experience with BlueBeam has not been so good. The pdf is reduced in size from the original, making the font smaller, and changing page breaks. The effect varies from one computer in my office to another. I use CutePDF, a freeware pdf writer; it creates pdfs with no change in size. Anonymous   Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 - 12:15 pm:    I use Acroplot (basic version, which was free if you attended AIA convention) to generate/compile PDFs from specs Word files and Bluebeam to annotate/comment (those PDFs rec'd that Adobe Acrobat creator did not permit Adobe Readers to comment on). I too have/used CutePDF, but it does not have ability to restrict use of PDFs & batch-PDF'g, among other limitations (but for free, what can one expect?). I find that Acroplot is more intuitive to use than Bluebeam. Another benefit that I've occasionally used Acroplot for, is directly PDF'g (single) drawing files without having a CAD program. Acroplot does have some other limitations unless one upgrades to "Pro", but it has not affected what I need to do for specs. A slight drawback of Acroplot is PDF file sizes seem to be in general slightly larger than Bluebeam's PDFs. Anon (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Friday, April 03, 2015 - 12:01 pm:    BEWARE - BLUEBEAM Version 2015. After downloading and installing the 30-trial Bluebeam Revu Standard, I'm experiencing several problems. All of the custom macros that I created in Microsoft Word 2013 have totally disappeared. One of the custom macros that I've reloading will not function now as it did prior to installing Bluebeam. This one was a macro that would open every file in a folder, revise text in every file, save the file and move on to the next file until all files were revised. Bluebeam has completly negated another pdf program that I used successfully prior to installing Bluebam software. I've contacted Bluebeam support, but have not received an answer to my query other than asking me what version of Word I'm using. Nathan Woods, CSI, CCCA, LEED AP Senior Member Username: nwoods Post Number: 644 Registered: 08-2005 Posted on Monday, April 06, 2015 - 09:56 pm:    Anon, I am one of the independent beta testers for Bluebeam, and I can assure you what you are seeing with those Macro's is an anomaly. There were many other testers in the beta program, and none of them experienced this issue. I have forwarded this thread to some folks within Bluebeam, including the Support Specialist fielding your issue. They are actively doing some testing and bug hunting, trying to figure out what you have experienced. Don't give up hope yet! Anon (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Thursday, April 23, 2015 - 05:30 pm:    After 10 email exchanges between Bluebeam support and myself, we are no closer to solving the macro issue. I sent Bluebeam support copies of the macros that were wiped out (fortunately, I saved a copy as *.txt file) and most recently sent "logs.zip" file. Still no resolution. With only a couple of days remaining in the 30-day trial, I will uninstall Bluebeam and try to recover Microsoft Word functionality. An (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Friday, January 22, 2016 - 06:02 pm:    Anon, have you (or anyone else) had any success since in resolving this old Bluebeam-erasing-macros issue? I just had this happen to me. Annon (Unregistered Guest) Unregistered guest Posted on Saturday, January 23, 2016 - 11:14 am:    An, No resolution yet. Bluebeam support has ceased contact with me. Eventually, I was able to re-write the much-needed macro. And, to prevent Bluebeam from erasing macros, I made Microsoft Word normal.dot read only. Maybe Nathan has received additional input from Bluebeam?