How Can I Make My Home Building Plan Portable?

A Home Plan in Your Pocket

by Dan Sater on June 18, 2015  in Building, Home Design, Technology

It was not that long ago that a home plan was a big, bulky mass of paper. The iconic image of a builder spreading out a set of blue prints at a job site is mostly a thing of the past. More often then not you will see builders and contractors reaching for their iPads and tablets when referencing home plans.

This revolution in home plans started in 1982 when AutoCAD made available its commercial software application. AutoCAD is not used exclusively for home plan creation. Any type of engineering design work can be done in AutoCAD. We may think of the 1980’s as the beginning of the technological revolution, but AutoCAD really began back around 1977 with a program called Interact CAD.

Since about the mid 1990’s all home plans have been created in electronic format using AutoCAD, or similar programs. But it took another bit of technology to push the home plan off the paper format.

Around 1991 John Warnock, co-founder of Adobe Systems outlined a system called Camelot, this would evolve into what we know today as PDF. It was not until about 1993 that the Portable Document Format (PDF) was available free of charge. It was eventually released as a open standard, meaning that anyone can use the technology.

The combination of AutoCAD and PDF allowed the home plan to become truly portable. Every operating system and platform from Mac to Windows, Linux to Android support PDF file format.

Best Format for a Home Plan

Getting your home plan in PDF format is the most portable and flexible option. First of all your home plans are emailed to you saving any shipping charges. Then you can put the PDF file on a Flash Drive and take your home plan with you. If you need a printed set every print shop, large or small can print from a PDF. In the past you would be force to buy a predetermined number of printed home plan sets regardless of how many you actually needed. Now you print just what you need. You can email your home plan in PDF format to your engineer, builder, or interior designer, anyone who needs a copy. Many areas of the U.S. are no longer accepting home plans in paper format but requiring they be submitted in PDF format.

Putting your home plan in your pocket has never been easier.