Last reviewed . Revu’s panels move between versions. If a step here no longer matches what is on your screen, tell us and we will fix it.
The short version
Decide what one symbol means and put it in the count’s name. Place the first one by hand so the rest inherit the naming. Box up a clean instance and let a visual search find the others. Then spend your time looking for symbols with no mark on them, take the legend and the details out of the total, and hold the number against a schedule.
Counting is one part of the takeoff. The rest of the workflow, measuring areas and lengths, organising the markups and totalling them, is in How to do a takeoff in Bluebeam Revu, and the setting every measured quantity depends on is in How to set the scale in Bluebeam Revu.
Counting symbols, in order
Decide what one symbol means before you count one
A count is only as good as its unit, and the unit is a scope decision rather than a drawing one. Is a quad receptacle one device or two? Does a fixture on the demolition sheet count, and does the same fixture count again on the new-work sheet? Does a symbol drawn dashed mean future, existing, or by others?
Settle it against the legend and the general notes first, write the answer into the name of the count you are about to create, and it survives being read back three weeks later by somebody else. A count called "Recept" answers nothing. A count called "Recept, duplex, new work, 120V" answers all of it.
Place the first count by hand, on purpose
Open the Count tool and click one instance of the symbol on the sheet. Every click drops a numbered mark and adds a row to the Markups list, so the running total lives in the file rather than on a notepad beside it.
Set the colour and the subject on this first one, because everything the search adds afterwards inherits them. Getting the naming right once at the start is the difference between a Markups list you can sort into a bid and a page covered in identical green dots.
Let a visual search find the rest
Draw a box around one clean instance of the symbol and run a visual search across the page or the whole document. Revu compares the shape you selected against the drawing and returns what matches, and the results can be turned into counts in one move rather than clicked one at a time.
Select the tightest example you can find. A symbol you box up together with a piece of a wall, a leader line or a nearby tag is a different shape from the same symbol standing alone, and every match after that is judged against the mess you included.
Check the misses, not the hits
A search returns a number, and the number looks finished. It is not. The results panel shows you what was found, which is the half that needs no checking: what decides whether the count is right is the instances that are on the sheet and not in the list.
So read the drawing, not the panel. Pan across the sheet at a zoom where you can still recognise the symbol and look for one without a mark on it. Rotated instances, mirrored ones, symbols sitting on a hatch, symbols with a leader running through them and symbols half covered by a dimension string are the ones that go missing, and they go missing quietly.
When you find one the search did not, do not just click it. Ask why it looked different, then run a second search using that instance as the example. A symbol that is missed once is usually missed in a family.
| How the symbol is drawn | A search finds it | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Clean, upright, well spaced | Reliable | Search once and spot-check a corner of the sheet |
| Rotated or mirrored | Often missed | Search again with a rotated instance as the example |
| Overlapping a leader, tag or dimension | Often missed | Read the drawing for these; they rarely come back from a search |
| Sitting on hatch or poché | Unreliable | The background changes the shape. Expect to find these by eye |
| On a scanned sheet | Unreliable | Speckle makes every instance slightly different. Count by hand |
| In the legend or a typical detail | Found, and should not be | Delete these before you read the total |
Take the legend, the schedules and the details out of the number
The symbol you are counting is drawn in the legend, in the typical details, and sometimes in the title block. A document-wide search finds every one of them, and each is a phantom device in your total.
Search the plan region rather than the page where you can, and where you cannot, delete the marks that landed outside the plan before you read the total. Do it immediately. A stray count in a legend is invisible an hour later and it is still in the number.
Keep one count per sheet, and name it by sheet
Run the count per sheet and let the Markups list add them up, rather than running one search across a 60-page set and reading a single figure. A per-sheet number is a number you can check against that sheet. A set-wide number can only be checked by doing the whole thing again.
It also gives you the thing a reviewer asks for, which is where the devices are, not just how many. When the panel schedule and your count disagree, per-sheet subtotals tell you which floor to look at.
Reconcile against something that was not the drawing
The count is not done when the search is done. It is done when it agrees with an independent source: the fixture schedule, the panel schedule, the door schedule, the quantities called out in the specification.
A gap is information rather than an error. Six more devices on the sheet than in the panel schedule usually means a revision landed in one and not the other, and that is a question for an RFI, worth more to the bid than the count itself.
Trusting the number the search returns
The results panel tells you what was found. It cannot tell you what was there. The count is finished when you have looked for a symbol without a mark on it and failed to find one.
Counting the legend along with the plan
A document-wide search finds the symbol wherever it is drawn, including the key that explains it and the typical detail that shows it. Every one is a device you did not buy.
Boxing up the symbol with its surroundings
A selection that includes a piece of wall, a leader or a tag is a different shape from the symbol on its own, and the search spends the rest of the sheet looking for that shape.
One count for the whole set
A single figure across 60 sheets cannot be checked against anything except a second run of the same search. Per-sheet subtotals can be checked against the sheet.
Counting demolition and new work into one number
The same symbol appears on both sheets and means the opposite thing on each. Decide it in step 01 or carry it into the bid twice.
Counting a superseded revision
A set with an addendum has two versions of some sheets. The count is only as current as the sheet it ran on, and nothing in the total says which one that was.
Never reconciling
A count that has never been held against a schedule is a number nobody has questioned. The disagreement is usually where the money is.
Questions people ask
Why does a visual search miss symbols that look identical to me?
Because it is matching a shape rather than reading a drawing. A symbol rotated ninety degrees, mirrored, drawn over hatch, or crossed by a leader line is a different arrangement of marks from the one you boxed up, even though your eye reads both as the same device. That is why the check is to look for symbols without marks on them rather than to read the number the search returned.
Do I count the symbols in the legend and the typical details?
No, and a document-wide search will find them for you anyway. The legend, the typical details and sometimes the title block all draw the symbol you are counting. Search the plan region rather than the whole page where you can, and where you cannot, delete the marks that landed outside the plan before you read the total, while you can still see which ones they are.
How do I count a symbol that appears on more than one sheet?
Once per sheet, named by sheet, and let the Markups list total them. A single search across a whole set gives you a figure that can only be checked by running it again, while per-sheet subtotals can be checked against the sheet in front of you and tell you which floor to look at when your count and the panel schedule disagree.
What do I do about symbols that are rotated or mirrored?
Run a second search using a rotated instance as the example, and a third for a mirrored one if the drawing has them. A symbol that gets missed once is usually missed as a family, so finding one unmarked instance is worth more than clicking it: it tells you there is a whole orientation the first search did not see.
How do I check a count somebody else made?
Hold it against a source that is not the drawing. The fixture schedule, the panel schedule or the specification were written by somebody else from the same design, so agreement is real evidence and a gap is a question worth asking. Then look at whether the count was named well enough to say what it included: a count that does not record whether demolition, future work or the legend were in the number cannot be checked at all.
The faster way through it
Or ask for the count out loud
“Count the duplex receptacles on E-201.” Our AI model reads the sheet, works out which symbols the scope covers, and drives the Bluebeam Revu you already have open to place the counts. They land in your Markups list as native, editable count markups, named the way you asked for them. It asks before it writes.