Whether you’re a Bluebeam beginner or a seasoned expert, we all have gaps in our knowledge. Tuesday Tidbits will help you fill in those gaps. Every Tuesday, I’ll teach you simple techniques that you can learn in under 10 minutes and implement immediately to improve your workflow.
Intro
Bluebeam allows you to perfectly align and evenly distribute markups. These tools are hidden in the right-click menu. They even have buttons, but those are only available if you customize your toolbars. I’ll have a post on this topic in the future, but for now you can check out Bluebeam’s own documentation at this link.
Align
There are several ways to align. All of these are found in the right-click menu after selecting 2 or more markups:
Left
Center
Right
Top
Middle
Bottom
Width (makes markups the same width)
Height (makes markups the same height)
Whichever markup you right-click is the controlling markup; it will stay in place while the other markups align relative to it.
Distribute
There are two ways to distribute:
Horizontally
Vertically
For the distribute tool, the outermost markups control. So for horizontal spacing, make sure the leftmost and rightmost marks are where they should be. For vertical spacing, put the top and bottom marks where they should be.
Then select all the markups you want evenly spaced, right-click on any one of the marks, and they will perfectly space themselves between the two outermost marks.
Note: See how to Copy and Paste Like a Bluebeam Wizard for the copy technique in the GIF below.
Conclusion
I love combining the Align and Distribute tools to create really clean details, both for sending internally to my coworkers and externally to clients. It really elevates the clarity and professionalism of even quickest of sketches.
So did you already know this tip? If you did, is it something you use a lot? If you didn’t, come back and tell me how you like it after a few days of testing it out. Let me know in the comments!