HighDesign R9 provides the ability to open multi-page PDF documents

In the professional practice, it is quite often required to attach external documents to a project. These documents usually consist of several pages of tables, adopted design criteria, standards or zoning codes and rules of municipalities, and are available only as PDF documents.

HighDesign R9 introduces new PDF features that allow you to open a multi-page PDF file as a stand-alone document that you can review and annotate, or insert a PDF document in a HighDesign project so that it integrates the design. A handy list of page thumbnails allows you to navigate through the document any time you want.

Opening a PDF document

HighDesign can now handle multiple page raster PDF documents: use the Open command on the File menu to insert documents with all their pages in a new document.

If you need to add the PDF to an existing project, then use the Insert > PDF… command in the Project menu. PDFs can be inserted in new or existing drafting sheets and layouts.

The PDF document is an external reference that is displayed within HighDesign: once it opens the first page shows up in the drawing window and all the thumbnails of the other pages are listed on the left in a bar. Select the page you wish to display from that list and close the page thumbnail bar.

Managing a PDF document

A PDF is an element of the project and you can move and arrange it and use the sketch and documentation tools in order to compose the layouts as you prefer.

Once you select the currently displayed page of the PDF, a thumbnail icon shows up on the top-left vertex of the selection box: click it to show the page thumbnails and change the displayed page.

Multiple page PDFs support the Markup Objects: this is very useful when you have to add notes and marks to the document. Add the markup objects to the currently displayed page: all the pages that store markup objects keep the links to their respective objects. The thumbnails of those pages are highlighted with the icon of the Markup Tools.

Viewports only show the currently selected page of multiple page documents. When printing a multiple page PDF you can print only the currently selected page.

Saving a PDF document

Raster PDF documents are saved as externally referenced documents within an HighDesign project, with all their pages and likely markup objects. It is also possible to export the selected PDF document as a raster PDF file via the Export > Image File… option of the File menu.