Questions

• How does the free On-Screen Takeoff PlanViewer compare with On-Screen Takeoff Professional?
• Why upgrade from OST-PlanViewer to a paid Takeoff application?

Discussion

Both On-Screen Takeoff Professional and PlanViewer provides estimators, project managers, and foreman features designed to improve takeoff speed, retain and organize data, and share projects with others.

PlanViewer, on the other hand, is a minimalistic, plan-viewing and markup utility, used to review a project before investing the time and resources to create full takeoff and an estimate.

Feature Comparison

Key:

• - Not supported or not available
• - Supports
• - Excels

Capability/Feature	On-Screen Takeoff® FREE PlanViewer	On-Screen Takeoff® Professional
Bid (Project) Creation
Create Base Bid
Create Alternates and Change Orders
Create Project versions;
Organize Projects in/by Folders;
Takeoff and Measurements
Access AI-Powered Takeoff Boost™ to automate takeoff
Measure Linears, Areas, and Counts;
Generate multiple quantities based on measurements;		(3)
Save takeoff quantities;
View Legend of Condition Quantities per Page;
Price Material and Labor;
Auto Count
Create and Save Conditions;
Assign Takeoff to Layers and Areas;
Toggle Existing Layers on and off;
Create new Custom Layers;
Use Typical Takeoff to speed up takeoff process;
Use Zones to breakout takeoff quantities;
Duplicate and Reassign Takeoff to Different Conditions;
Use IntelligentPaste to speed up takeoff process;
Use Advanced Pasting Controls;
Takeoff multiple Condition at the same time;
Takeoff curved areas;
Copy and Paste Area Backouts;
Digitizer Support;
Exports and Pricing
Price using built-in Worksheet
Export Bid to sharable file;
Export Bid to Quick Bid;
Export Takeoff Quantities to Excel or CSV;
Export Priced Condition/Takeoff Item Quantities to Excel or CSV;
Link Condition Quantities direct to Excel;
Interactively work with Quick Bid;
Manage Project in Digital Production Control (DPC);
Plan Organization
Access AI-powered Auto Naming to speed setup of Pages
Download plans from supported Planrooms;
View plans in color;
View raster images (tiff, cal);
View vector and CAD images;
View photo images (jpg, png, bmp);
Organize and match up drawing revisions;
Compare Revisions using Overlay feature;
Compare multiple Revisions using Overlay feature;
Annotation Tools
Add text to the drawing;
Using electronic ink to markup drawing;
Highlighter tool;
Create Hot Links and Named Views;
Turn Image Legend on and off;
Ungroup, move, or edit the Image Legend;
Collaboration
Allow multiple estimators to work on takeoff concurrently;
Allow employees within Organization to see each other's work;
Share Bids with other users via Project Express;	(Receive only)
Share bids between home office and field;
View projects in ConstructConnect's Web Takeoff
Data Access
Set Permissions
Custom Permissions
Access Data from MS Access or SQL Database
Manage Backups	;
Access Current Data in the Cloud *
Store work 'in the cloud' for access to other users with application access;		(Project Express)

*See Can I Use "Cloud" Storage?