Auto count a symbol

Auto count finds every copy of a symbol after you box one. You then review the matches on the sheet and add the ones you accept as count marks. It is a helper, not a guarantee: always review before you add.

Find the symbols

1. Make or click a count item under Items.
2. Open a sheet where the symbol appears.
3. Choose Auto count in the toolbar, or press SS. A bar appears at the top of the sheet: "Drag a box around one symbol on this sheet."
4. To search every open sheet, not just this one, tick Search all open sheets.
5. Zoom in so the symbol is easy to see, then drag a box snugly round one copy of it. Include the whole symbol; blank paper round it is trimmed off. The bar shows "Searching…" with a progress bar and a Cancel button. The page stays responsive: you can zoom, pan and move between sheets. Choosing another tool, or EscEsc, cancels the search.
6. When it finishes, the matches appear on the sheet as boxes in the item's color, and the bar shows a summary such as "22 matches, 19 to add (3 already counted). Click a box to reject or restore it."

In Auto count, dragging on the sheet draws a box instead of panning. To pan, hold SpaceSpace and drag, or drag with the middle button.

Review the matches

• Click a box to reject it. A rejected box is dashed and crossed out. Click it again to restore it.
• Move the Match slider (50% to 95%, starting at 75%). Higher shows only close matches; lower shows looser ones. The slider only filters what was found; it does not search again.
• Already counted: matches on a spot that already has a count mark of this item start rejected, so you do not count anything twice.
• Other sheets: when you searched all open sheets, move between sheets with the sheets list or fn ↓Page Down and review each one. The summary says how many sheets have matches.

Add them

Choose Add. The button says how many, for example "Add 19 marks". The count marks are added at the center of each accepted box: "Added 19 count marks to "Duplex receptacle". Ctrl+Z removes them all."

The whole batch is one undo step, so one ⌘ZCtrl+Z removes it.

To drop the review without adding anything, choose Discard or press EscEsc. Picking another tool also discards it.

What it finds, and what it misses

TakeoffCraft compares the drawing, as pixels, with the symbol you boxed.

• It finds the symbol turned 0°, 90°, 180° and 270°. It does not find it at other angles, or mirrored (unless the symbol looks the same mirrored).
• Every searched sheet must draw the symbol at the same size. A sheet at another scale, or an enlarged plan, does not match. Search those sheets separately with a box drawn there.
• Very similar symbols can match each other: a duplex and a quad receptacle, or two fixture tags that differ by one letter. Raise the slider until only the right ones remain, and reject the rest by hand.
• A symbol crossed by other lines, hatching or text scores lower and may need a lower slider setting.
• Very small boxes are refused: "That box is too small. Draw it around the whole symbol." An empty box is refused too: "That box is almost empty. Draw it around a symbol."
• A sheet that would be very large at the size needed for this symbol is skipped, and the summary says "1 sheet was too large to search at this symbol size." Box a larger symbol, or count that sheet by hand.

If nothing is found, the status bar says "No matches. Lower the match slider, or box the symbol more tightly."

Speed and browsers

The search runs in a background worker, so the page stays responsive and you can cancel at any time. Each sheet is first drawn at the working size on the page itself, which can make a very large sheet pause for a moment. It runs in current Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari. Searching many sheets takes longer; the progress bar moves sheet by sheet. Offline, auto count works when the app bar shows Offline ready: Save for offline keeps the worker too. See Working offline.