True-Scale Architectural Plan Sets, Straight from Your Scan

A floor plan PDF used to mean a picture of the plan, shrunk to fit the page, with an approximate scale note in the corner. That is fine for a quick look, but nobody can lay a scale ruler on it, and it does not look like the drawings architects, adjusters and contractors hand each other every day.

Starting today, every PDF floor plan exported from the vPlan AR web editor is a true-scale architectural sheet, and Pro users can export the whole building as one plan set.

What Changed

We rebuilt the drawing engine behind the PDF export. Walls are drawn solid (poché) with one clean outline, exterior walls heavier than interior ones. Doors show their swing, windows sit in the wall, stairs carry a cut line and an UP arrow, and appliances and fixtures use standard symbols. Every sheet gets a border, a drawing title with its scale, a graphic scale bar and a title block, and a north arrow when you have set the plan's north direction.

The PDF is rendered on our servers with the same engine whatever device you export from, so what you download is a real vector file at exact paper size, not a browser print-out. If you are offline, the editor falls back to your browser's print dialog with the same drawing.

Drawn at a Real Scale

Each sheet is drawn at a standard architectural scale: 1/2", 3/8", 1/4", 3/16", 1/8" or 1/16" = 1'-0" for imperial projects, and 1:50, 1:100, 1:200 or 1:500 for metric ones. "Auto" picks the largest standard scale that fits the sheet, or you can choose one yourself. Print the PDF at 100% and a scale ruler reads true off the page.

Sheet sizes run from Letter and A4 through Legal, Tabloid (11 × 17), A3, ARCH C (18 × 24), ARCH D (24 × 36) and A1, so a large house can go onto a real drawing sheet instead of being squeezed onto letter paper.

Room Tags, Dimensions and Door Sizes

Annotations are generated from the plan itself. Each room gets a tag with its name, its size (for example 13'-8" x 12'-10") and its ceiling height, and halls are labeled with their width. Exterior walls get dimension strings on every side: an overall dimension plus a chain broken at each corner. Doors and windows get size tags such as 2'-8" x 6'-8", using the heights captured by the scan when they are available. Appliances are labeled REF, DW, W/D and so on.

Labels are placed so they do not run into walls or each other; when a room is too small for its tag, the tag moves outside with a leader line. Every annotation type is a checkbox in the export dialog, so you can turn off room areas for a contractor or furniture for an adjuster. For more on reading these labels, see our floor plan symbols and abbreviations guide.

Every Level in One Plan Set

On Pro, a single PDF can now hold the whole building. Each level gets its own sheet (A1.1, A1.2 and so on) at one common scale and centered on the same point, so the sheets line up when you flip between them. A cover sheet (A0.0) opens the set with a 3D view of the building, a sheet index and an area summary for each level.

If you scan homes with a basement and an upper floor, this replaces exporting one PDF per level and stapling them together. Read our multi-room scanning guide for tips on capturing each level cleanly.

Schedules and Overlay Sheets

Turn on schedule sheets and the set adds room, door and window schedules (A6.x). Each door and window gets a mark on the plan, such as D01 or W03, that matches its row in the schedule, which lists its size, type and the rooms it connects. Long schedules flow across columns and sheets automatically. The Architect title block turns schedules and marks on by default.

Overlay sheets draw each upper level over the one below it in light grey. They make it easy to check that bearing walls, stairs and plumbing walls stack the way you expect, and give a contractor a quick read on what sits above what.

Photos That Stay Linked on Paper

Photos attached to the project print in an appendix, numbered, and the plan shows matching markers in each room. Under every photo is a "View full image" link, a short web address and a QR code. Click the link in the PDF, or scan the code on a printed copy, and the full-resolution photo opens in a browser with its caption, room and date, ready to download. Nobody needs an account to open it.

The links do not expire after an hour like a typical cloud link. They stop working only if you delete the photo or project, turn off sharing for the project, or press "Reset photo links" in the Photos panel. That matters for damage and scope reports, which carry the same links and QR codes, where a carrier may open the file weeks later.

What Is on Free, Pro and Business

Free exports one level on Letter or A4 at the automatic scale, with a watermark. It is still a true-scale sheet with the full set of annotations and the photo appendix.

Pro removes the watermark and adds every level in one set, every sheet size and scale, the 3D cover sheet, schedule sheets and overlay sheets. Business adds your company logo and brand color to the title block. Plan rules are applied on our servers when the PDF is made. See pricing for the full comparison.

How to Export a Plan Set

Open the project in the web editor and click Export, then choose PDF. Tick the levels to include, pick a sheet size, a scale and a title block (Standard, Adjuster, Realtor or Architect), and choose what shows on the drawing. On Pro, add the 3D cover, schedule sheets or overlay sheets, then click Export PDF. Scans from the iPhone and iPad app reach the web editor through cloud sync on Pro and Business.

Fill in the project details first (client, address, reference number, preparer) so they print in the title block. If you are choosing between formats for a hand-off, our export format guide explains when a PDF is the right file and when DXF or XML is better.