Viewing a Drawing¶

What this is¶

A dedicated, read-only workspace for inspecting a drawing's linked document — page navigation, zoom, and Fit Width, in a much larger working area than the Documents preview. It is not a markup or annotation tool.

Opening the viewer¶

From the Drawing Register, select View on a drawing row (or click the row itself) to open its Drawing Viewer.

The viewer header shows the Drawing Number, Title, Discipline, Status, Location Reference, the current revision (if the drawing has revision history — see Drawing Revisions), and the document's file name, alongside Revisions, Download, and Back actions.

Viewing a historical revision¶

If you open an older revision from the Revisions panel, the viewer clearly marks it Historical and shows a banner naming the actual current revision, with a link to jump straight back to it. This never changes which revision is current — it's a read-only look at what was issued at that point.

For a multi-page document, use the previous/next arrows to move between pages. The current page and total page count are always shown. The arrows disable automatically at the first and last page.

Zoom¶

Use Zoom In/Zoom Out to adjust the page size; the current zoom percentage is always shown alongside them.

Fit Width¶

Select Fit Width to scale the page to the available viewer width automatically. Fit Width stays active as the browser window is resized — resize the window or rotate a tablet/phone and the page rescales to match. Fit Width switches off automatically the next time Zoom In/Out is used.

Downloading¶

Select Download in the viewer header to download the linked document — the same secured download used throughout SureSign.

Drawing locations¶

A drawing revision may have specific locations marked on it, shown as small markers on the relevant page. Select a marker to see its label and any linked project records. Locations belong to the exact revision they were added to — switching to a different revision, or viewing an older one, shows only that revision's own locations.

Adding a location¶

On the drawing's current revision, select Add Location in the viewer header, then click the drawing where you want to place it. A small form asks for an optional label, then Save adds the location — Cancel discards it without saving anything. Locations can only be added on the current revision; open an older revision from Revisions and its locations are shown but read-only.

Editing, moving, and removing a location¶

Select a marker to open it, then:

Edit label to change its label.
Move location to reposition it — click the new position on the same page.
Remove location to delete it (with confirmation). If the location has linked records, removing it also removes those links — the linked records themselves are never deleted.

These actions are only available on the drawing's current revision.

Creating records from a Drawing Location¶

From a location's marker, select Create Record, then choose Snag, RFI, or QA Report. This opens the exact same form used on that module's own page — a small "Creating from Drawing Location" note shows the drawing number, revision, page, and the location's label (if it has one). If the location has a label, Snag's Location field and QA Report's Area field are pre-filled from it — you can still edit or clear this, it's only a starting suggestion. RFI has no such field; its Drawing connection is recorded automatically, not written into any of its text fields.

Once you save, the new record is automatically linked to that location — you stay on the same drawing, revision, and page, and the new record appears immediately under the location's linked records.

This also works on a location that belongs to an older, historical revision — a hotspot marked on a superseded issue is still a real, specific place on the drawing, so you can create and link a record against it just as you would on the current revision. What you cannot do on a historical revision is add, move, or remove a location itself (see Adding a location above) — that stays limited to the current revision only.

Linking existing records¶

From a location's marker, select Link Existing, choose a record type (Snag, RFI, QA Report, or Variation), and search for the record to link. A location can link to more than one record, and the same record can be linked from more than one location. Select a linked record's link icon to open it. Select the small × beside a linked record to remove that link — the record itself is never affected. Like Create Record, this is available on a historical revision's location as well as the current revision's.

Create Record supports Snag, RFI, and QA Report only. Variation can only be connected to a drawing location via Link Existing — there is no way to create a new Variation from the Drawing Viewer.

A linked Snag, RFI, QA Report, or Variation shows its own Drawing Locations section listing every location it's linked from, with an Open Drawing action that jumps straight to the correct drawing, revision, and page.

Supported file types¶

The viewer displays the linked document exactly as Documents itself would serve it for preview — a PDF renders directly; a Word document that Documents already converts to PDF for preview renders the same way; an image (PNG/JPEG/etc.) displays directly. If a document has no usable preview (for example, no file has been uploaded to it, or the format isn't supported), the viewer shows a clear message with a Download option instead of leaving a blank screen.