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PDF plans or AutoCAD files: what to send for a takeoff

By Ephraim Shapiro, founder of BinaDesk · 2026-11-05

A takeoff is only as good as the plans behind it. Whoever does yours, by hand, with software or with AI, sending the right files makes the difference between an exact count and a list of questions. Here is what to send, and why.

Which pages a framing takeoff needs

• The floor plans. Every wall, door and window, with their labels. One plan for each floor, including the attic and the basement if they have walls to build.
• The elevations or a wall section. Elevations show the house from outside; a wall section shows a wall cut through. Either one gives how tall each floor’s walls are. Without them, nobody can say how long the studs (the upright boards inside the walls) need to be.
• The cover page and the general notes. They give the size of the beams over doors and windows, the panels that cover the walls, the building code, the wind the house is designed for, and often a table of extra studs beside wide openings. These change the count as much as the walls do.
• The window and door list, or the window maker’s name. The opening each window needs comes from its maker’s size chart, not from the lines on the plan.
• The framing plans, if there are any. They show the special engineered beams and posts, and how deep each floor is between stories, which changes how much outside wall there is to cover.

PDF or AutoCAD?

Either works, as long as it’s the original file.

• A PDF saved from the architect’s drawing program keeps every line and every word exactly where the architect put them. Walls can be measured to the scale of the page, and every label and note can be read as printed.
• AutoCAD files (DWG or DXF) carry the drawing’s own measurements, so nothing depends on a printed scale. You get the best result when the walls are drawn on their own layer and each floor plan is in a file of its own.
• From Revit, save the pages as a PDF, or the floor plans as DWG files. The Revit model file itself needs Revit to open.
• A scan or a photo is just a picture of the lines, slightly stretched and tilted, with the small writing blurred. It can’t be measured to the inch, so ask the architect for the PDF instead.

What makes a takeoff come back with questions

A careful takeoff asks instead of guessing. These are the usual reasons:

• No drawing shows how tall a floor’s walls are.
• The notes don’t give the size of the beam over some doors and windows.
• An opening has no label, and nothing says what it is.
• Part of a floor sits lower than the rest, such as a garage, and the plans don’t say by how much.
• A window maker is named, but one of the windows isn’t in the maker’s size chart.

Sending the whole set answers most of them before they’re asked.

Before you send

1. Every floor plan, the drawings of the outside of the house and the cover page are included.
2. The PDF was saved from the drawing program, not scanned.
3. In AutoCAD, each floor plan is in a file of its own.
4. The plans are the latest version, and every page is from the same version.
5. Optional items you are building are marked, so they can be counted.