Bluebeam Revu is a PDF management, control, and editing tool. It enables collaboration and markup within shared documents across projects’ life cycles and has takeoff and bid creation capabilities.
$240
per year per user
Tungsten Power PDF
Score 9.0 out of 10
Small Businesses (1-50 employees)
Tungsten Power PDF (formerly Kofax) is a solution to manage PDFs for businesses
and individuals available with a one-time purchase with no subscription fees. It has a built-in eSignature integration with SignDoc and DocuSign for a complete end-to-end document…
$129
one-time fee per license
Pricing
Bluebeam
Tungsten Power PDF
Editions & Modules
Revu Standard
$349
per seat
Revu CAD
$449
per seat
Revu eXtreme
$599
per seat
Power PDF Standard
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Standard for Mac
$129
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Advanced
$179
one-time fee per license
Power PDF Enterprise
Get a Quote
per year per seat
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Bluebeam
Tungsten Power PDF
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
Desktop licenses are buy once, own forever. No subscription fees.
Enterprise server licenses are term-based with optional maintenance & support contract.
Volume and upgrade discounts available.
Kofax Power PDF is about 1/7 the cost of these programs and offers most if not all of the same features, so why go anywhere else. we used to use Adobe but quickly realized I could buy a copy of Power PDF for everyone in the whole company for the cost of one copy of Adobe.
I don't have much experience with other specific programs. I have used Bluebeam some, but it is created for Blueprint reading/marking up/etc. Kofax is much better for my uses.
Power PDF is comparable to Acrobat, Bluebeam is a bit different and targeted for a different workflow. Comparing to Acrobat Power PDF provides the same functionality at much lower cost.
Nuance outclasses Foxit and Adobe Reader in most categories. It is significantly less expensive than Adobe, easier to use than both of them, and quicker than both as well. Bluebeam is the closest competitor in my opinion. The cost difference makes the difference between the two …
I am well-versed in both Acrobat and Revu. I think that Kofax looks and feels like Revu given all its functions, buttons, and commands but is used more like Acrobat. I selected Kofax because it is by far the most cost-effective option and I wanted to learn a new tool. I really …
Beats them all hands down. The rest of them lack tools, are difficult to navigate, do not have the thumbnail viewer that I find very important. I keep between 20 and 50 PDF's on my desktop at any time, to be able to glance and find the one I need without reading the file name …
The program is great for editing construction drawings, stamping/approving official documents and overlaying revised documents to see design changes. You can use it as an estimating takeoff tool, estimating database, document control, cloud document storage, the list goes on! Bluebeam poses many applications for the user to utilize for the desired needs. There may be some other software that has one specific function that can perform the specific task better, but Bluebeam is a holistic program with many tools for use.
It is well suited for all scenarios that you would use Adobe. It is especially useful and a terrific option for small to medium businesses who need the functionality of a PDF creator/editor/writer without having to spend the exuberant costs of Adobe Acrobat reader/writer/editor. It has saved us time and money. There is no learning curve in switching to it, our staff was able to switch seamlessly.
Once you set Bluebeam Revu as your default PDF handler, it launches immediately when clicking a PDF to open. The speed with which it opens documents is impressive.
Creating PDF's out of other documents, such as Word, Excel, JPG's, etc. is simple.
Digitally signing documents is a simple, secure process. You can keep your signature password-protected, yet still access it quickly.
The Bluebeam Revu mobile application ( I use the iOS version on an iPad Pro), is awesome. Not only does it handle PDF's like you would expect it to, it allows for effortless digital signing of documents on the fly. Nice to be able to quickly sign a document and email right back out from the tablet no matter where I am.
Typewriter functionality is great, although can take some time to load. This allows you to fill in text wherever applicable without turning the rest of the pdf into editable text.
Fast load times
Has autogenerated text feature so anything in the pdf can become editable
If you have several tabs open and you try to drag one out for a side by side view then you do not have all the modification options and you have to combine them back together.
There is a lag time when hitting the print option.
There is also a lag time when opening files, sometimes I think the window is frozen.
I wish the basic version also had basic file editing, as in editing a document as Adobe does.
I find that quickly editing text within a document or adding a line of text is clunky and can snowball into things popping out of place. I prefer to export text, and then work on it elsewhere.
Sometimes it seems that text recognition is trying too hard and throws me paper punches as "O"s and wrinkles as shapes, so I have to get rid of those artifacts.
The "Update Available" popup which is usually not an actual update announcement but rather an offer to sell me something is annoying.
Bluebeam is a powerful PDF viewer and mark-up tool. We are more familiar with it than Adobe Acrobat Pro or other viewers, and it has more features geared towards construction document managers than Acrobat Pro does.
This program can do everything that acrobat can do. Kofax PDF is priced so that we can afford to purchase for more employees when we need to. Since we are hoping to grow exponentially in the next few years, this product will be the one we go with. I'm very happy with Kofax Power PDF
I'm constantly finding that Bluebeam Revu does more than I knew it could. And when I find something that it can't do, I've found that Bluebeam truly listens to its user base and will work to incorporate any good suggestion when feasible.
It is fast and easy to get the hang of. It really didn't take a lot of effort to learn how to use this program and I appreciated that it was pretty "plug and play" and there wasn't a long learning curve.
Other that a PDF partially disappearing if left up for a long period of time - no issues. (If you close it and reopen it, it is all there. We have some PDFs that are 400-600 pages long.)
Pages nearly always load at the expected rapid speed. Some documents that print quickly from Adobe Reader print much more slowly from Power PDF. I have never generated a report - that's a feature I didn't know existed until now and do not know what it's for
Its hard for me to give a rating on this one as we rarely have to use the support feature for Bluebeam. However, when we have used it, they have been ultra supportive in helping us get exactly what we needed. I know another engineer was trying to figure out a feature and the rep gave a detailed tutorial on how to complete the task
I have used it for 15 years and have only needed support once: a simple update that allowed me to use the software as intended. The support team was attentive and responsive, and I was on my way very quickly.
I got an overview of the product from my predecessor who was about to retire from the job I now hold. He did not go into very many of the features and probably only knew about the ones he used most frequently.
We watched the training videos and tested out the features and functionality side by side. Some features are not used on a regular basis is it is convenient to go back and review training on that particular functionality when needed.
Easy and quick, with no problems or support needed. Worked as intended right out of the box. E-signing was the only area that implementation was dificult and required support
We feel there is not another program out there that would compare to Bluebeam at this current time. Some of the other programs out there do not include studio or the overlaying process which is one of our main uses. The ease of hyperlinking makes this product stand out the most.
I think Adobe Acrobat is very slow and does not perform well with large documents. I often have documents that are thousands of pages long and with Adobe it's very difficult to open and load the document, let alone make changes. Kofax Power PDF, on the other hand, responds and performs well regardless of the document size.
Not really familiar since I'm the only person who uses it. But in the past it has been my understanding that Power PDF was offered only on a single-license basis, so it's been expensive for me to use it at home and at work because I had to pay for it on my own. In my current position management supports it so I at least only have to pay for it once.
A major positive aspect is being able to take your computer home without taking the entire set of paper drawings. They have made it so easy to navigate a set of drawings that I can work at home using only the digital drawings.
Collaboration with owners and architects has been a great feature. Setting up a Bluebeam studio and having everyone get in and mark things up, then having the architect be able to go in and see what markups have been added, has made the constructability review process much much better.
Even when not working on drawings, Bluebeam is a very good tool for working with standard PDF documents. The markup tools are very easy to use.
The negative aspect is the takeoff function because some people would like estimators to use the Bluebeam takeoff because it would make their job easier down the road; however, the actual act of doing a full scale takeoff in Bluebeam would require much more time.
Saved time and paper putting together binders of documents or Affidavits electronically, not to mention very functional when working from home!
It's one price, no monthly or yearly payments. I loved Kofax Power PDF so much that when I moved to a smaller firm I recommended it as a good purchase for the company to invest in.
