Help & Guides

Cable Takeoff turns a floor-plan PDF into a cable takeoff and bill of materials. Load your plan, set the scale, drop your outlets, and it measures every run back to the rack and totals your footage and materials — no counting symbols by hand.

Quick start

1. Create a project and upload your plan. From the dashboard, click + New Project, name it, and upload your floor-plan PDF. Multi-page PDFs are supported — each page is handled separately.
2. Set the scale. Open the Scale tool (press S or click it in the left rail). Pick a scale preset, or click Calibrate from two points and click two points on a known dimension (a door, a dimension line, a grid bay), then enter the real length. Quantities depend on this, so set it on every page. Tip: use the longest known dimension you can for the most accurate scale.
3. Place your IDF. Press I (or click IDF in the rail) and click your telecom-room / rack location on the plan. This is the anchor every cable measures back to — place it before you start clicking drops.
4. Ctrl+click your drops. Hold Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) and click each outlet location — a plain click never places a drop, so stray clicks while panning or closing menus can't add one by accident. Each Ctrl+click measures the run from that point back to the active IDF and adds it to the table. Set the drop type, cable type, and count as you go in the Drop panel (D), plus a slack allowance for service loops and terminations.
5. Export. When you're done, click Export to Excel under the drop table for your BOM, or Export in the top bar for a PNG or PDF of the marked-up plan. Projects auto-save to your account and reopen from the dashboard.

Finding your way around. Tools live in the rail down the left edge — Select (V), Drop (D), IDF (I), Pathway (P), Measure (M), Scale (S), Auto-detect (A) and Legend (L) — and each opens a small panel over the drawing with only that tool's settings. Undo and the Lines / Paths show-hide toggles sit at the bottom of the rail. The top bar holds the project name and save status, page navigation in the centre, and Prices, Estimate, Proposal, Compliance, Export, zoom and the View menu (rotate, fit, actual size) on the right. The pill at the bottom of the drawing always says what a click will do.

Keys and panels. Press a tool's letter to open it, and Esc to close an open panel or leave a placing mode. The letters never fire while you're typing in a box, and Ctrl+Z (Cmd+Z) is Undo everywhere. Hover any rail button for its name and shortcut.

Scale calibration (per page)

Scale is stored per page — a 24×36 sheet and an enlarged detail on the next page each need their own calibration. Re-calibrate any time from the Scale panel, and use Apply to all pages there to copy one page's scale to every page. If measurements look off, this is the first thing to check.

Feet or metres. Each project has a unit — pick Feet or Metres when you create it, or flip the ft | m pill in the Scale panel's header at any time. It changes how lengths are shown, exported and typed (the drop table, totals, the measure tool, slack, pathway and tray settings, the Excel export, the proposal and Pre-Flight), and it never changes a measurement: switch a project from feet to metres and back and every number is exactly as it was. Metric projects get plan-ratio presets (1:20 to 1:500; 1:100 is the most common), and two-point calibration asks for the known distance in metres. Presets assume the sheet was printed at its stated size — a 1:100 A1 sheet reduced to A3 measures at 1:200 — so when in doubt, calibrate against a written dimension. Tray sizes read in millimetres (300 × 100 mm) and cable is counted in 305 m boxes (the same 1,000 ft box); conduit and sleeve sizes stay trade sizes, with the NEC metric designator alongside (¾" (21)).

IDFs

An IDF is your rack / telecom room — the point cable runs return to. Place it before dropping outlets so runs calculate. On multi-closet jobs, place one per IDF; labels are unique across the whole project (IDF-3 on page 2 is distinct from IDF-3 on page 1). Each drop is tied to whichever IDF is active when you place it. Drag an IDF to move it and every attached run re-measures.

Drops & drop types

A drop is one outlet location. The drop type sets its symbol and how many cables it represents (a 2-drop location counts as two cables from that point). Built-in types cover common 1–10 cable configurations; you can define your own with custom symbols, cable makeup, and your own part numbers — click the gear next to Drop type in the Drop panel. Zero-cable "pull-only" types are supported for other trades that supply their own cable.

Cable type, count & slack

Set the cable type (Cat6, Cat6A) so the BOM categorizes runs correctly — and, with pathway sizing on, so J-hook fill is calculated by cable diameter. Slack is the extra cable added to each run (service loops + terminations at both ends). Set it in the Drop panel before you place drops: each drop takes the slack that's in the box at the moment you place it. When you move to another page, the box switches to the slack that page's drops already use; on a page with no drops yet it keeps your last value, and the bar at the bottom of the drawing shows it until you place the first drop. The drop list's Slack column shows each drop's slack.

Changed the slack after placing drops? When the Slack box doesn't match the drops on the page you're on, those drops' Slack cells turn amber and the Drop panel says so, for example "6 drops on this page use 10 ft slack — the Slack box says 15 ft", with a Refresh slack on this page button. It asks first and lists what will change, then updates the per-cable and total footage for that page's drops. Run lengths stay exactly as they were, other pages aren't touched, and Ctrl+Z puts the old slack back. Visit each page you want to update and refresh it there.

How length is measured

Each run is measured from the drop back to its IDF. By default that's an L-shaped path (horizontal + vertical). When you use corridor routing, runs follow the actual corridor path length instead. Your slack allowance is added on top.

Measure tool

Press M (or click Measure in the rail) and click two points to check a distance. The label shows both the straight-line distance and the L-path length, using the current page's scale. Click again to start a new measurement, and press Esc or Done to leave. Measurements are for reference only: they aren't saved and never change your takeoff or estimate.

Corridor routing PRO

Press P (or click Pathway in the rail) and trace your cable pathways once (like drawing the tray / J-hook runs), and every drop auto-routes along the nearest corridor, measuring the real path instead of a straight L-shape. Waypoints are editable and draggable, and you can insert mid-span points by right-clicking the band. This is how you get realistic footage on jobs where cable follows hallways, not diagonals.

Branching a side hallway: right-click anywhere on a pathway — the band or one of its points — and choose 🔀 Branch from here. The branch starts locked onto the pathway at that spot (right-click a corner or end point to branch off the corner itself), and a dashed line follows your cursor. Click along the side hall, then double-click or press Enter to finish. Backspace (or Ctrl+Z) steps back one point while you trace, and Esc cancels. The branch is its own pathway, so you can move or delete it without touching the main run, and cables route through the junction automatically.

Where pathways join: the ends of a pathway snap onto another pathway within about 3 ft, so junctions line up; points in the middle of a pathway never snap. Cables route through a junction only where pathways visibly meet: at an end, where two pathways cross, or where a corner sits on another pathway's band. Hold Alt (Option on Mac) while finishing a pathway or letting go of an end point to keep it exactly where you click.

Editing points: drag a point to reshape the pathway. Right-click a point for ✖ Remove this point; right-click the band for ➕ Add point here. After you finish a pathway, Undo (bottom of the rail, or Ctrl+Z) removes it.

Drops that aren't using a pathway. If a page has a pathway but a drop's run doesn't follow it, that run is measured as a direct L-path instead. Those drops get a small amber ⚠ on their marker, and the Drop panel and the pill at the bottom show how many there are on the page. It usually means the pathway doesn't reach close enough to the drop or to its IDF: extend it, or branch off it toward them, and the warning clears as soon as the runs re-route. Drops in the IDF's own room are normally measured direct, so a warning there is expected. To hide the warnings, open the View menu (⋯ in the top bar) and choose Hide pathway warnings. They never appear in exports and don't change any footage.

IDF build-out BOM PRO

Add the rack and cable-management materials for each IDF (racks, ladder rack, patch panels, etc.) from a reusable equipment list you maintain with your own part numbers, via Build-out BOM in the IDF panel. These land in the Materials tab of the Excel export, per IDF and consolidated.

J-hook / pathway sizing PRO

Automatically sizes J-hook support along your corridors and tapers the hook size down as cables peel off toward dead-ends. In Pathway settings (in the Pathway panel), configure a tier ladder (small / medium / large — name, part number, capacity) and your cable outside-diameters; sizing is OD-aware, so a Cat6A bundle fills a hook faster than Cat6. Output appears as pathway materials in the Excel export.

Cable tray PRO

Any pathway can be built from cable tray instead of J-hooks. Right-click the pathway (band or point) and choose 🧱 Tray…, then pick the type (ladder, wire mesh or solid bottom), the width (4" to 24", or 100 to 600 mm on a metric project) and the depth (2" to 6", or 50 to 150 mm). Tick Apply to every pathway on this page to set a whole floor at once. Tray pathways draw in teal with their size on the run; a branch traced off a tray run inherits its tray. Routing and cable lengths do not change — tray only changes what the pathway is built from, and a tray pathway gets no J-hooks.

What gets counted — all from the pathway's shape and the drops routed on it:

• Straight sections, rounded up to your section length (10 ft by default; 3 m on a metric project).
• Elbows at every bend of 30° or more (90° elbow from 67.5° up, otherwise 45°).
• Tees and crosses where tray pathways meet, and a reducer where the widths differ.
• Cable drop-outs, only for the tray types you tick in Pathway settings (off by default, since basket tray above a ceiling usually hands the cable straight onto J-hooks): one for each drop that leaves the tray, plus one where the trunk leaves toward each IDF.
• Hanger parts, listed as the pieces you order (the trapeze hanger line is only a count, for install hours): threaded rod in 10 ft sticks cut to your rod drop (2 ft by default), strut in 10 ft sticks cut to the tray width plus an overhang (6" by default), and per rod one anchor, two hex nuts and two square washers. Two rods per trapeze hanger by default. Rod and anchor size: 3/8" for every tray width by default. The electrical code leaves tray supports to the manufacturer's installation instructions and doesn't set a rod size by width, so treat 3/8" as a starting point: check it against the tray maker's instructions and the project spec, and in Pathway settings you can set a larger rod above a width you choose. They are listed by rod size (TRAY-ANCHOR-3/8), so one price-book row covers every tray.
• Trapeze hangers at your spacing (5 ft by default, 1.5 m on a metric project, plus one at the end), splice plate pairs (one per section and per fitting), and covers if you switch them on.

Pricing. Tray items use generic, brand-neutral part keys such as TRAY-LADDER-12x4-STRAIGHT, TRAY-LADDER-12x4-ELBOW90 or TRAY-MESH-18x2-HANGER. Add a Prices row (top bar) whose part # matches the key (the Estimate lists every key it needs under "not priced") and the item prices itself from then on. The sizes in a key are always the nominal inch classes, even on a metric project (300 mm tray = 12, 100 mm deep = 4). Install hours per piece, hanger spacing, section length and covers live in Pathway settings.

Running length. The totals under the drop list show the installed length of every pathway kind in the project — wire mesh, ladder and solid bottom tray, and J-hook pathway — and update as you trace. Under each kind is the split by tray size (12" × 4", 18" × 4" …) or, for J-hook pathway, by hook size and J-hook trees; the hook rows follow the cables routed on each stretch, so they move as you place drops. Hover a row for the per-page split, and click it to zoom to those pathways on the sheet; the Pathway panel shows the same figures for the page you're on. These are installed lengths; the Excel Materials tab keeps the section counts for purchasing.

Auto-size. The tray modal reads how many cables route along the pathway at its fullest point and names the smallest catalog tray that holds them at 25% design fill, with what that tray holds at 40% (the usual growth ceiling). Click Auto-size to set the width; change the depth and the width follows. With Apply to every pathway on this page ticked, each pathway is sized on its own bundle. Sizing is from your cable diameters, so Cat6A bundles size up sooner, and it needs the drops placed and routed first. Pathway settings has a capacity table — cables per tray at 25% and 40% for Cat6 and Cat6A at any depth — for planning before the drops are in.

Fill check. Compliance Pre-Flight compares the fullest point of each tray run with NEC 392.22(A): cable cross-section (from your cable diameters) against 50% of the tray's interior area for ladder and wire mesh, 40% for solid bottom, with depth counted up to 6" (150 mm). Set your own tighter ceiling in Pathway settings if you design for growth. The Excel Materials tab lists each tray run with its length, peak cable count and fill.

Auto-detect symbols PRO

Press A (or click Auto-detect in the rail) and drag a box around one outlet symbol on the plan. Cable Takeoff finds the matching symbols on the page and marks each one. Tick include rotations & flips first if the symbol can appear turned or mirrored. Use the Confidence slider to tighten or loosen the matches, click any marker to drop it, then click Place drops. Detected drops use the current drop type, cable, slack and active IDF, and any match sitting on top of an existing drop is skipped. Check the result like any other drops before you export.

Legend

Press L (or click Legend in the rail) to place a legend of the drop types used on the current page; press L again to remove it. It fills in from that page's drops, you can drag it anywhere on the plan, and it prints and exports with the drawing. Each page keeps its own.

Multi-page plans

Each page is independent — its own scale and its own drops / IDFs. Use the page controls in the centre of the top bar to move between sheets, type a page number in the box and press Enter, or pick a sheet from the dropdown. The sidebar table shows drops across all pages (with a "Pg" column); other-page rows are dimmed, and clicking one jumps you to that page. The next and previous sheets are prepared in the background so the arrows respond instantly.

Sheet names: if your PDF carries sheet numbers (most plan sets exported from CAD or a PDF tool do), they appear in the dropdown automatically. Click the pencil next to the sheet dropdown to name the current page yourself, such as T-101 — names are saved with the project and show in the drop table, the Excel export and Compliance Pre-Flight instead of the page number.

Exporting

PNG / PDF — marked-up plan images for submittals or records, from Export in the top bar. The PDF comes as print quality or smaller, for email. Drops, lines, pathways and legends are included; on-screen warnings are not.
Excel — the full takeoff: a combined sheet, a tab per cable type, a quantity Summary, and a Materials tab (cable-assembly BOM, IDF build-out, and pathway materials). Part numbers in the BOM are the ones you enter on your drop types, equipment, and pathway tiers.

Saving & projects

Projects auto-save to your account about every two minutes; you can also save manually with the Save button next to the project name. Reopen, rename, or delete projects from the dashboard.

Frequently asked questions