Bluebeam vs. Tungsten PaperPort

As stated before, the mobile application is a great companion to the desktop version. Either one works great in viewing, editing and saving documents. While the measurement tool is handy to have, we have found the precision to be lacking when measuring scaled drawings (construction design drawings). While it is a good rough place to start for measurements, we wouldn't recommend relying on the precision of the measurements taken on something with a very large scale.

Incentivized

It's a good tool for the organization which still send or receive a lot of paper documents. Keeping a track of paper receipts and documents is messy and not sustainable beyond a point. With Kofax PaperPort, the documents can be digitized and stored and even the information can be structured and the processes can be automated.

Incentivized

• Overlaying pdf drawings to identify changes made by architects.
• Scaling dimensions when the architect has not provided required dimensions to proceed with work in the field.
• Hyperlinking construction documents with required information makes it much easier to look through multiple sheets in less time.

Incentivized

• The editing of a PDF or image by cleaning up an image are most important to me.
• Ability to remove scanning artifacts from difficult to scan items at the actual pixel level.
• The ability to set scanner profiles makes workflow easier.

• If you have several tabs open and you try to drag one out for a side by side view then you do not have all the modification options and you have to combine them back together.
• There is a lag time when hitting the print option.
• There is also a lag time when opening files, sometimes I think the window is frozen.
• I wish the basic version also had basic file editing, as in editing a document as Adobe does.

Incentivized

• It should have a back button, so if you go from one folder to the next, it would be simple to get back to the first folder.
• When you combine two PDFs, it should retain the title of the one that's on top.
• The send to bar should be easier to change.

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a powerful PDF viewer and mark-up tool. We are more familiar with it than Adobe Acrobat Pro or other viewers, and it has more features geared towards construction document managers than Acrobat Pro does.

Incentivized

PaperPort has a few quirks, but it is the only program of its kind that actually does what it claims to do. The power of it is so much more than they claim especially when it comes to trying to achieve a truly paperless office. With PDF editing built-in, it also saves considerable investment in other PDF editing programs.

Incentivized

I'm constantly finding that Bluebeam Revu does more than I knew it could. And when I find something that it can't do, I've found that Bluebeam truly listens to its user base and will work to incorporate any good suggestion when feasible.

Incentivized

For us, it's only focusing processes that we're already doing... creating folders, placing scanned files into those folders, then searching for and opening up those files later, as needed. It just helps us view everything in one place - very convenient. Further, being able to drag non-native files to their corresponding source app for editing (Word, Excel, etc) is pretty nice.

Incentivized

Its hard for me to give a rating on this one as we rarely have to use the support feature for Bluebeam. However, when we have used it, they have been ultra supportive in helping us get exactly what we needed. I know another engineer was trying to figure out a feature and the rep gave a detailed tutorial on how to complete the task

Incentivized

Bluebeam is a diverse program with many functions and tools, whereas competitive programs only specialize in one or few tasks. Although there are many tools within the program, users can still quickly learn how to use the program to best fit their needs. There is always a help tab for any assistance needed.

Incentivized

Tungsten PaperPort has actually gone through SEVERAL ownership changes since I began using it - I think I initially started using it when it came bundled with a Visioneer scanner...?... but regardless, I've used it for a very long time, and it's continued to get better. I've not actually tried any other similar software. This works, and I intend to stick with it.

Incentivized

• A major positive aspect is being able to take your computer home without taking the entire set of paper drawings. They have made it so easy to navigate a set of drawings that I can work at home using only the digital drawings.
• Collaboration with owners and architects has been a great feature. Setting up a Bluebeam studio and having everyone get in and mark things up, then having the architect be able to go in and see what markups have been added, has made the constructability review process much much better.
• Even when not working on drawings, Bluebeam is a very good tool for working with standard PDF documents. The markup tools are very easy to use.
• The negative aspect is the takeoff function because some people would like estimators to use the Bluebeam takeoff because it would make their job easier down the road; however, the actual act of doing a full scale takeoff in Bluebeam would require much more time.

Incentivized

• Simple focus on organization of files
• Efficient later, when searching for files
• Convenient throughout the office, as we're all accessing a shared data store

Incentivized