Every time we attend or exhibit at a SharePoint trade show, we run into the people from Atalasoft.

One of the products Atalasoft develops – Vizit SP – allows you to efficiently view, markup, compare, search, print and collaborate on documents in SharePoint.

We always felt that there would be cases when our products could be used together as a valuable solution to a business problem, because microsoft-sharepointe is really good at automating the conversion of documents to PDF, and their products make it efficient to work with them within SharePoint.

Other similarities are that neither product requires software to be installed on the users’ desktop or documents to be downloaded from SharePoint. Adlib and Atalasoft recently presented our products together as a solution for working with  CAD drawings in SharePoint.

PDF for SharePoint and VizitSP provide a valuable solution for companies in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry. These companies work with many Autodesk AutoCAD (DWG) files from various vendors that require review and approval.

Converting them to PDF within SharePoint has a number of advantages over leaving them in their original DWG format:

  • Much smaller file size makes them more easily accessible remotely
  • Protects Intellectual Property (IP) within the files when sharing them between vendors
  • Eliminates the need for desktop software to review them (AutoCAD, AutoCAD viewer)
  • Provides greater visibility into technical information by making drawings easily accessible to all users

Once they are in PDF format, VizitSP can be used  to:

  • Review drawings via the SharePoint interface
  • Approve changes to drawings
  • Make annotations that are communicated back to the designer

The value of using PDF for SharePoint and VizitSP as a solution for AEC companies are as follows:

Reduced Cost

  • Replaces manual conversion processes with automated conversion of CAD drawings
  • Eliminates the need to purchase and maintain desktop software for viewing and annotating CAD files

Increased User Satisfaction & Efficiency

  • Provide greater visibility into technical information by making drawings easily accessible
  • Promote collaboration internally and with external suppliers while protecting intellectual property

About the Author

Paul Dyck