Bluebeam Revu 20 is finally here! Revu 20 delivers an easy and secure way to communicate and collaborate with project partners to maximize project efficiency and minimize risk. Revu 20 features a variety of improvements to content management and markup tool capabilities, allowing for greater flexibility and control of project data. 

This article will overview all the new features available in Bluebeam Revu 20, along with how to leverage these new tools within your work. The examples below are taken from Bluebeam Revu 20 eXtreme version. 

Bluebeam Studio

Bluebeam Studio is Revu’s powerful solution for project collaboration and document management. When collaborating in Bluebeam Studio, it’s important to make sure that the right people have the right access to your information. For this reason, Revu 20 features various changes to the attendee invitation and joining process within both Studio Sessions and Studio Projects.

Access Studio Invitations from the Studio Panel

In previous versions of Revu, a Session or Project could only be joined via an email invitation or inputting the Session/Project ID number. In Revu 20, Sessions and Projects can now be joined right from within the Studio panel.

In Revu 20, all of your Sessions and Projects will display under one of two tabs: Joined and Not Joined. Any Sessions or Projects that you’re currently a part of will display under Joined, and any that you’ve been invited to, but have not yet joined, will display under Not Joined. Any Sessions/Projects under the Not Joined tab will provide you with a Join button that will give you immediate access to the Session or Project. Never again will you need to worry about Studio invitations being lost in your email – now, you can see and accept all invitations right from within the Studio Panel. This will help reduce the risk of ever missing a Session or Project and prevent collaboration delays.

Session/Project Invitation Improvements

Revu 20 helps to maximize productivity in Bluebeam Studio with improvements to the invitation process. In earlier versions of Revu, the Session/Project Invitation windows only allowed you to invite collaborators one at a time, making the invitation process long and tedious. 

In Revu 20, this process has been streamlined to allow you to invite multiple collaborators simultaneously. When you click on the Invite button in a Session or Project, you’ll now have three options: Type or Paste Emails, Add Emails from Groups, and Use Address Book.

Type or Paste Emails: This option lets you type, or copy and paste, groups of emails to invite them to Studio. A useful way to use this feature is to copy a list of recipients from an email. This section will only take the emails that are pasted, and will exclude extra characters such as names and semicolons automatically. From this screen, you can also check your work by quickly identifying how many users from different domains you’re inviting before emailing the invitation.

Add Emails from Groups: This option lets you quickly add specific users that you’ve utilized into Groups. You can invite the entire group, or expand the group to invite just specific group members.

Use Address Book: This option, which was available in earlier versions of Revu, allows you to invite participants using the Address Book from the locally installed email client.

These options are available in both Studio Sessions and Studio Projects, giving increased efficiency and more accountability when it comes to inviting users to collaborate.

Manage Studio Invitees and Attendees

Revu 20 also features improved user and content management capabilities by making it easier to view who has or hasn’t joined your Studio Session or Project.  In older versions of Revu, project partners can only be seen via the Attendees list in Sessions or the User Access settings in Projects.

In Revu 20, these sections have been streamlined to clearly show who has and hasn’t joined the Session or Project.

In Studio Sessions, the Attendees list will display two tabs: Joined and Not Joined. If someone hasn’t joined the Session, you can now send them a reminder email right from within Studio Sessions.

In Studio Projects, the Joined and Not Joined tabs will display in the User Access settings. Any user that hasn’t joined can be sent a reminder email from this section as well.

You’ll now have more visibility on who is in or out of a Session or Project, helping to ensure active participation from project partners and prevent collaboration delays.

Markup Tools

Bluebeam Revu’s Markup Tools allow you to better communicate project data with customized, in-depth annotations. Revu 20 features variety of improvements to some of the most commonly used markup and measurement tools to help  you to save time and ensure accuracy throughout the duration of your project. 

Convert Text Boxes to Callouts – and vice versa

Revu 20 has added improvements to some of the most widely used markups: Callout and Text Box. Callout and Text Box markups are very similar; both contain a text box to convey project information, but Callouts additionally have leader lines that can be used to point out specifics on a drawing. In previous versions of Revu, it would often be cumbersome to change between these two types of markups, despite their similarities.

In Revu 20, this process has been streamlined by allowing leader lines to be added to Text Box markups, converting the markup automatically into a Callout. Additionally, leader lines can now be removed from Callouts to easily transform them into Text Boxes. These changes can help save time when needing to communicate project information on the drawing.

To add a leader line to a Text Box, right click on it and select Add Leader . To remove a leader line from a Callout, right click on it and select Delete Leader.

Leader Line Improvements

In regards to Callout markups, Revu 20 also features improvements to leader lines. In previous versions of Revu, all leader lines originated on the left side of the Callout, no matter where they pointed.

 In Revu 20, leader lines will originate from the closest side, and can be placed on the top, left, right, or bottom of the Callout. This change will help you to more accurately display project information and increase communication between collaborators.

To move a leader line to another side of the Callout, click and drag the ending control point to the desired location.

Text Box Improvements

Revu 20 features several other improvements to the Text Box markup tool, as well. Text Boxes can now be styled to a hexagon shape, which can be very useful for industries such as oil and gas.

Text Boxes now also supports autosizing text with multiline text. In previous versions of Revu, you could either autosize the font or have multiple lines of text – but now, in Revu 20, you can do both. No longer are you limited to a single line of text for autosizing Text Boxes, as the text will now size to optimally fit.

Measurement Line Styles

With Revu, you can complete quantity takeoffs with the powerful measurement functionality. In previous versions of Revu, you could only differentiate between the line style of a measurement by selecting one of 6 different dash styles, or by changing the line color.

In Revu 20, there are a wider range of measurement line styles that can be applied to measurement markups – and you can even create custom ones. These new line styles will allow you to save time and quickly identify different material types for takeoffs. 

To access these new lines styles, first add a measurement. In the Properties Toolbar, the Line Style dropdown will now show both the newly added line styles, along with any custom line styles that may have been created. The same options will also be available in the Properties Panel. These line styles will also apply to any cutouts you may use for the measurement.

THE MARKUPS LIST

The Markups List is a powerful core feature of Revu that allows you to capture and track data that can be filtered, searched and exported to inform project decisions. With Revu 20, improvements have been made to the Markups List to help effectively track, manage, and gain insights from the data in your documents.

Custom Filters

When you have a document with many markups, it’s often difficult to find the information you need. Filtering markups allows for easy identification of a set of related markups.

Filters can be set using the column headers, but if you need more control over a filter, you can create a custom filter. In Revu 20, the Custom Filter settings have now been streamlined to allow you to search for text that begins with or contains certain text, or even filter number and measurement columns with greater than, greater than or equal, less than, and less than or equal to criteria.

In previous versions of Revu, custom filters could not be saved, and would need to be remade every time you move between documents – a cumbersome process that would often increase time viewing Markups List data for documents. This process has been streamlined in Revu 20 by allowing you to save custom filters that can be used at a later time, or another document. 

To save a custom filter, select the Filter List Settings button. Give your custom filter a name and press the check button. Once saved, the filter will be available continuously from the Filter List dropdown.

Exclude Replies 

Revu 20 also includes improvements to the Markups List exporting capabilities, making it easier to work with the captured data. In previous versions of Revu, when exporting markup list data to a summary, all markup replies would be included. This can clutter up the markup summary with unneeded information.

With Revu 20, you now have the option of including, or excluding, markup replies from your CSV, XML, PDF or Print summaries to help you manage and process your markup list data more clearly.

To create a Markups List summary, select the Summary button in the Markups List panel. There is now an option under Include: for Replies that can be checked or unchecked, depending on your needs. With Revu 20, you have more control to effectively track, manage, and interpret the data in your documents.

ADDITIONAL IMPROVEMENTS

Find Tool

Revu gives you a wealth of smart tools and functionalities your team can use to get the job done faster. With all the tools available in the program, it can often be challenging to find what you need, when you need it. Revu 20 aids in this with the Find Tool, which can help you find exactly what tool you need.

In previous versions of Revu, there wasn’t an easy way to find the tools needed. In Revu 20, you can leverage the new Find Tools + Commands option under the Help dropdown menu to quickly and easily find the tool and functionality you need at any given moment. This new tool will help you save time and complete any specific task you need to work on.

To find a tool or feature, go to the Help menu, find the Find Tools + Commands feature at the very top, and start typing within the search bar. If, for example, you wanted to add a Space to the current drawing, you could type in Space – all tools related to Spaces, such as adding and editing Spaces, will appear, allowing you to quickly access them.

Bluebeam Revu 20 features a variety of tools that can help to increase task efficiency and communication, maximize productivity, minimize risk, and improve project predictability. The above list are just some of the bigger improvements available in Revu 20. Additionally, Revu 20 features a new Dark Theme, plugin updates for AutoCAD 2021, Navisworks 2021, Sketchup Pro 2020, Windows support, and improved Rendering for markup heavy documents.

To experience all the improvements available within Revu 20, you can purchase the program from the Taradigm webstore.

If you previously purchased a license of Bluebeam Revu with maintenance, you will be able to upgrade to Revu 20 for free. For step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade to Revu 20 with maintenance, follow this blog post. 

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, please use the comment section on the bottom of this page, and don’t forget to subscribe to our blog to get more Bluebeam tips & tricks directly in your inbox!

Lauren Hecker is a Bluebeam Certified Instructor and teaches Onsite Bluebeam Certified Courses, virtual Bluebeam Basics and Advanced courses, and custom onsite or virtual courses. To see her next open enrollment course, please visit our calendar. To schedule an onsite or custom course, please contact us!