Newforma Viewer

Use the Newforma Viewer to view and mark up graphics files using simple-to-use annotation and drawing tools.

The Newforma Viewer does not alter the original source file. It creates a new markup session using the underlying source file as a background.

Use the Newforma Viewer to do the following:

Pan and zoom drawings;
Manage layer and object visibility without knowing CAD layers or entities;
Count and measure drawing objects and areas;
Print scaled views of the drawing on any system printer;
Compare drawing changes graphically;
Find text in a drawing, then list and zoom in on the text matches;
Layer multiple discrete markups on top of an existing CAD or raster file without affecting the actual source file;
Embed markups with URL paths to the original markup file in an email message;
Stamp drawings.

Getting started

Open the Newforma Viewer by opening a graphics file or an existing markup session from Project Center. To create a new markup session from a file, click File, Open. Locate the source file you want to mark up, then click Open.

The Newforma Viewer does not directly support 3D .DWF files exported from applications such as Autodesk Revit, Architectural Desktop, Civil 3D, or AutoCAD. However, you can use the Newforma Snapshot Tool to capture an image, then open it and mark it up in the Newforma Viewer.

Menus

The menus at the top of the Newforma Viewer (File, Edit, Views, Tools, Help) contain many of the tasks available in the Viewer Tasks panel, as well as some tasks that are not in the Viewer Tasks panel. For example:

You can add the markup session file to a document set, action item, RFI, or submittal by clicking File, Add Source Drawing to and selecting the item from the list, or by clicking File, Add Source Drawing to, Another Project Item to open the Select Project Item dialog box.
You can click File, Source File Settings to open the Source File Settings dialog box, from which you can set the drawing unit and select a new source drawing. You can also use the Set Drawing Scale dialog box to set the scale of raster files, .PDF files, and .DWF files.
You can rotate raster image files (.BMP, .JPEG, .GIF, .TIFF, .PNG, and .PDF files) in 90 degree increments. Click View, Rotate Current Background Page/Rotate All Background Pages. Any markups that have already been added are not rotated.
When comparing drawings, you can rotate baseline and revised drawings by clicking View, Rotate Baseline Drawing or Rotate Revised Drawings. These tasks are available only if at least one of the drawings supports rotation.
You can layer markup objects. Select markup objects and place them behind other objects or in front of other objects by clicking Edit, Bring to Front/Send to Back.
To undo your last edit, click Edit, Undo. To redo it, click Edit, Redo.

Other information

You can use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, and Ctrl-V to copy, cut, and paste markup objects.

Toolbar

Use the Toolbar to navigate around the drawing. Click each icon for more information.

The following list shows all available tasks.

Markup Drawing

Click to open the Markup Tools panel to create a new markup session using the current drawing as the source.

Show Drawing Explorer

Click to open the Drawing Explorer dialog box to save the current markup, copy it to the Windows clipboard, save it as another file type, or delete it.

Pan and Zoom

Click to use the Pan and Zoom panel, which contains tasks to move the drawing within the window, and zoom in and out of the drawing.

Count and Measure

Click to use the Count and Measure panel, which contains tasks to count objects in the drawing, and measure lengths and areas of objects in the drawing.

Create or Send PDF

Click to use the PDF Options panel to save or send the marked up image as a .PDF file.

Email Current View

Click to send the marked up image as a .PNG attachment in a Microsoft Outlook email message. A link to the original source file is also included in the email message.

For better quality when emailing a drawing containing markup text, create and send it as a PDF.

Manage Drawing Visibility

Click to use the Drawing Visibility panel to make drawing objects visible and invisible.

Compare/Manage Compare Results

Click to open the Select Revised Drawing dialog box to select a drawing to compare to the current one. After you select a drawing, the Compare Tasks panel opens, which you can use to compare differences between the baseline drawing and the revised drawing, and compare drawings using the Digital Light Table.

Manage Revision History Compare

This task appears if you have compared three or more drawings from Project Center. Click to open the Compare Revision History panel to compare differences between each of the drawing revisions, as well as compare the drawings using the Digital Light Table.

Options

Click to open the Options dialog box to customize the viewer settings, including the background color for the drawing, the object color, the animation speed, transparency, and the snap setting.

Main panel

The drawing appears in the main panel. An example is shown below. Use the Toolbar (shown above) and the Viewer Tasks (on the left) to manipulate and mark up the drawing.

Markups

The Markups panel (on the right side of the main panel, as shown below) lists the markups in the markup session, as well as the statuses of the markups. You can set the statuses of the markups by clicking the button next to the Status field. You can add new markups to the session by clicking Save Current View as Markup from the Markup Tools panel.

You can add comments to the markup by typing in the Add a Comment field, then pressing Enter.
Click the button to open the Markup Properties dialog box, which shows all comments that exist for the markup, as well as who created it, and when it was created. You can also enter comments about the markup.

Taskbar tools

Drawing Unit

Choose the drawing unit to apply to the drawing from the drop-down list.

Navigation tools

Click the arrows to go to the first page, previous page, next page, and last page, or use the drop-down list to select a layout.

Monochrome On/Off

Set Monochrome to On to change the color of all objects in the drawing to the same color.

Project Center automatically marks the Monochrome Background Geometry checkbox (located in the Options dialog box) when you set this option to On. You can then click the color box and choose a color from the palette.

This feature does not change the color of markups added to the drawing.
This option may not have an effect if the background drawing is already drawn with a black and white plot style.

Snap On/Off

Set Snap to On to snap to objects in the drawing when adding markups and using the measurement tools.

Project Center automatically marks the Snap to Background Geometry checkbox (located in the Options dialog box) when you set this option to On.

Locking multiple page documents when comparing baseline and revised documents

When comparing multiple page documents, you can lock the pagination so that when you switch pages, both documents change together, as shown in the first example below, or you can click the lock icon to unlock them (indicated by the green unlocked icon) so that you can change the pages individually, as shown in the second example.

To access the Newforma Viewer

You can access this application in the following ways:

Double-click a markup session from the Project Markup Sessions activity center or the Related Markup Sessions activity center.
Double-click a markup session from Related Items tabs throughout Project enter.
Double-click a file of type .DWG, .DWF, .DGN, or .DXF from any list of files throughout Project Center.
You can also configure other file types to open in the Newforma Viewer.