Measure distances and areas on drawings

Measure is for checking dimensions on PDF drawings, such as shop drawings and site plans. You set the scale the sheet was drawn at, and measurements on the page show real lengths and areas, for example 2500 mm or 12'-6".

Set the scale

Choose Tools ▸ Set measure scale…. The dialog shows the scale of the current page and where it comes from: From the PDF, Calibrated, the preset (such as 1:50), or Default when the page has no scale of its own yet.

• Drawing scale: pick a preset from 1:1 to 1:1000, or Custom 1:n… and type a scale such as 1:30. Choose the units: mm, cm or m.
• Imperial: pick an architectural or engineering scale, from 1/8" = 1'-0" to 1" = 50'. Show the results as feet and inches (12'-6 1/2") or as decimal feet.
• Calibrate…: use this when the sheet has no stated scale, or was printed or scanned at another size. The dialog closes; click the two ends of a dimension you know, such as a dimensioned wall or a scale bar. Hold Shift to keep the line horizontal, vertical or at 45°. Press Esc to cancel. The dialog comes back with the length you picked: type its real length and choose the units. A line shorter than 5 points is refused; click two points further apart.
• Precision: the number of decimals (0 to 3), or for feet and inches the smallest fraction shown: 1/16", 1/8", 1/4" or 1/2".
• Apply to: This page, or All pages of the document.

Click OK. Changing the scale is one step you can undo with Ctrl+Z. The scale you set last is also the starting scale of documents that have none.

Measure

Choose Measure in the toolbar, after Shapes, then pick Distance, Perimeter or Area in its options bar. The options bar also shows the page scale; click it to open the scale dialog.

• Distance: click the two ends, or press, drag and release.
• Perimeter and Area: click each corner in turn. The running value follows the pointer. Double-click or press Enter to finish, Backspace removes the last point, and Esc cancels. Area closes the shape for you and needs at least three points.
• Hold Shift to keep a segment horizontal, vertical or at 45°.
• Snapping: near the end of a line drawn in the PDF, a small square appears and the point snaps exactly to that end. Hold Alt to place a point freely.

Each tool remembers its own colour and line width (distance red, perimeter blue, area green to start). A measurement is a markup like any other: select it to move it, drag a corner to change it (the value updates), add a comment to label it, or delete it. Ctrl+Z undoes each step.

The Measurements list

Open Measurements in the sidebar to see every measurement in the document by page, with its value, scale and comment, and the totals for each kind. Click a row to go to that measurement. Export CSV… saves the list for Excel: page, kind, value at full precision, unit, scale and comment.

The scale is saved in the PDF

The page scale is saved in the PDF as a standard measurement viewport, so other PDF programs can use it. Scales set in Adobe Acrobat or Bluebeam Revu are read when you open the file, and the dialog then shows From the PDF.