Steel Quote turns a take-off - every member on the job, with its size, length and quantity - into a total weight, then prices it at your rates for material, coating, bolts, drafting, fabrication and margin.
The workbench: a rail of buttons on the left (Workspace, Drawing, Site Costs, Nesting, Load/Save, Reset All), the workspace in the middle, the Live Summary on the right. Same calculator and data as the classic version.
- Start the job. Type the Project Name - it names every save and export. Continuing an old job? Load/Save > Open reopens a saved Estimate Sheet PDF, Spreadsheet or marked PDF Drawing. Reset All clears the last job for a fresh start (it asks first).
- Set your rates before you take off. Each member copies the Item Variables (waste, cleats, $/tonne, bolt price, fab hours) at the moment it's added - changing them later leaves existing members on their old rates. Set them now, or open a Variables file saved from a past job. Project Variables (drafting, fabrication $/hr, margin, site costs) apply to the whole job and can change any time.
- Take off the members. Fill in the entry panel - Item, Quantity, Length (m), Type and Size (or a Custom weight), Coating, Bolts (prefilled for standard connections; tick Portal for knee/apex) - and click ADD. Weight and With Waste update as you type.
- Or take them off the drawings. Open Drawing, load a PDF set, pick a sheet from the SHEETS bar and set the scale (or pick Custom… and click both ends of a known dimension). There are two ways to work from there, and they share the same tools:
Measure first. Fill in the entry panel except Length, then Measure: click a member's two ends and it goes on the schedule at the measured length, rounded to 0.1 m; each further pair of clicks adds another member - or, when it measures the same and everything else matches, counts onto that member's line. Column - one click places a vertical member at the typed Length, and further clicks with the same properties count onto that line.
Schedule first. Read the plan's own member schedule and enter every row with ADD, leaving Length blank. Each line goes on the schedule as 0 of 4 measured, not priced and the Live Summary counts how many are still unmeasured, so a half-done take-off never passes for a finished one. Use Strike to rule through each row on the plan as you enter it. Then click a line in the schedule and press Measure (or Column, with a Length typed): every instance you click counts up - 1 of 4, 2 of 4 - the first one sets the length, one of a different length splits onto its own line, and at the full count the line settles and prices. Typing a Length and pressing EDIT settles a line by hand.
Either way: Snap holds lines square; Rotate turns the sheet; + / − zoom it, and each sheet remembers its own zoom and position; B&W lifts faint coloured linework. The Colour swatch sets the colour new members draw in - with a member selected it repaints that member, and the instances you measure into a line take its colour as you place them.
- Add the site costs. Site Costs on the rail: chemset counts, transport and crane hours, hire days, installation - the estimate rows a take-off can't measure. Every cost computes as you type and flows into the total and both exports.
- Nest the steel. Nesting on the rail reads the quoted schedule live (or a detailer's cutting list file), nests it into the mill lengths each material comes in, uses your rack stock first, and gives you the order list with weights and the bar-by-bar cutting list for the saw. Commit a nest to move its offcuts onto the rack for the next job.
- Check and correct as you go. Click a schedule line to load it into the form: EDIT commits changes, REMOVE deletes it (with a few seconds of UNDO), ADD makes a new line. On the sheet, Select a mark to drag it (body moves it, endpoint re-sizes it - re-sizing one mark of a multi-quantity line splits it onto its own line), Copy places another, Delete removes it. A strike is handled the same way: Select it to move it, drag an end to re-aim it, recolour it from the swatch or Delete it - it is a note on the plan, never a member. The Live Summary keeps Quantities, Costs and Project Costs in view the whole time.
- Save the job. Load/Save > Save: the Estimate Sheet PDF and the Spreadsheet are both save files - each embeds the whole take-off and reopens it later. PDF Drawing saves the marked-up set. Variables keeps just your rates for the next job; Raw Text is a plain printable copy.
Work autosaves to this browser (green ✓ at the rail's foot) and is offered back next visit. Click any ? for help on a field. Enter adds the item, Escape clears the form, Delete removes the selected schedule line. The moon/sun button switches dark mode.
Note: the exported spreadsheet is meant to be worked on in Excel - crane days, site costs, finishing touches. It's also the calculator's save file, though, and a hand-edited copy can load back incorrectly - so to change the take-off itself, OPEN the file here, edit, and export again.
Prefer the layout you know? ← Switch to the classic calculator - it stays as it is, permanently.