6.10How do I draw on an existing architectural plan?

An architect's drawing, a sales plan, an archive survey: any PDF can serve as a drawing background, provided you give it the right scale.

1. Import the PDF

From the home page, the Import button creates a project and opens the dedicated interface directly. From a plan that is already open, use the import button in the toolbar — see overlaying a PDF on an existing plan.

2. Set the scale

This is the step not to skip: an imported PDF has no scale until you give it one. Find a known dimension on the document, trace it with the cursor, enter its real value in metres, and the app recalibrates the whole plan.

The detailed procedure is in scaling a PDF.

3. Draw over it

Once the scale is set, use the drawing tools to retrace the structure: walls, openings, stairs. The alignment guides help you follow the background.

You end up with a vector, measurable plan — not an image. It then feeds costing, the measurement sheet and every export, exactly like a scanned plan.

The PDF background can be hidden through the layers once tracing is done, or removed from the PDF background panel.