Cella beta: what it is, how to start, what to tell us

Thank you for testing Cella before its public release. This guide is for the three architecture firms in the Cella beta. It takes about ten minutes to get going; the User Guide in the app (Help ▸ Cella User Guide) has the detail.

Coming from Bluebeam Revu? Read the guide's Coming from Bluebeam Revu section first: it maps Revu's features, keys and files to Cella's.

What Cella is

Cella opens PDF drawing sets the way architects and contractors use them. It is meant to take over day-to-day redlining and take-off from Bluebeam Revu: open a set, mark it up, measure, total it, save, and hand the PDF to anyone with Acrobat or Bluebeam, who will see your markups exactly as you drew them.

  • Cella is one product: opening, reading and printing, and everything that writes to the PDF (markups, calibrated measurements, the take-off Markups List, Compare Documents, sheet operations, forms, redaction, sync). It normally costs $149 once, with every 1.x update; one key covers one computer (Mac, Windows or Linux) and one iPad (the iPad app is coming). A 14-day free trial starts the first time you open it, with no sign-up. Without a key after the trial, Cella is view-only: files open, zoom, search and print, but marking up, measuring and saving need a key. For the beta, your firm gets keys free with a coupon code, so you will not see the trial run out.
  • Atrium is Cella's sync server, for when you want everyone's markups to reach everyone else on a project live. You don't need it to test Cella. If you'd like to try it, tell us: we can host one for your firm during the beta, or help you run it on your own server.

Install

Mac (macOS 12 or later, Apple silicon or Intel). Open Cella-1.0.dmg and drag Cella into Applications. It is signed and notarized, so it opens like any other app; the first time, macOS asks you to confirm.

Windows (Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime, which Windows 11 and up-to-date Windows 10 already have). Open Cella-1.0-Setup.msi: it installs Cella for you alone (no administrator password) in your user folder and adds it to the Start menu, and later versions install over it by themselves. Uninstall it from Settings ▸ Apps ▸ Installed apps. If you'd rather not use an installer, unzip Cella-1.0-Windows.zip instead and move Cella.exe to a folder you can change, such as Documents (not Program Files), so it can update itself. The installer has not been run on Windows yet; if it fails, use the zip and tell us. If SmartScreen says "Windows protected your PC", click More info, then Run anyway.

Linux (Ubuntu 24.04 or later on x86_64 or arm64, or Arch Linux / Omarchy on x86_64). In the folder where you saved the download:

sudo apt install ./cella_1.0.0-1_amd64.deb             # Ubuntu; arm64: ./cella_1.0.0-1_arm64.deb
sudo pacman -U cella-bin-1.0.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst     # Arch / Omarchy

The Mac version is the one we have used most. The Windows and Linux versions are the same app on the same core, but they are the newest; if you use them, everything you notice is useful to us. Use whichever your office runs; one key covers all three.

Cella opens on a Welcome window with your recent documents and sets. While this is a beta, the Welcome window's Beta card at the top has this guide (Beta guide), Report a Bug… and What's new; tick Don't show again to hide it.

Redeem your coupon and enter your key

Your coupon code and a checkout link came in the email with this guide. The 14-day trial is already running from the first time you opened Cella, so you can start working before the key arrives; nothing you do in the trial is lost.

  1. Open the checkout link, enter your email address and the coupon code. The total comes to $0, and no card is needed. Each person who marks up checks out once, with their own email.
  2. A Cella license key arrives by email from our store, Lemon Squeezy.
  3. In Cella, choose Enter License Key… (the Cella menu on the Mac, the Help menu on Windows and Linux; or click Buy Cella… on the toolbar and use it from there). Paste the key and click Activate. The About window then says "Licensed to" and your name.

Your coupon covers the people we agreed with your firm. One key works on one of that person's computers (Mac, Windows or Linux) and, when the iPad app comes, one iPad. To move a key, open Cella License… on the old computer, choose Deactivate This Device…, and enter the key on the new one.

If the trial ends before you have entered the key, Cella is view-only and says "Your 14-day free trial has ended. Buy Cella or enter a license key to keep marking up." Enter the key and it carries on where you were.

Try these first

Start with the sample sheet that comes with Cella, A-101 First Floor Plan.pdf: on the Welcome window, Try the sample set ▸ Open the sample drawing puts a copy in Documents/Cella Samples and opens it (Open the sample set opens a folder of three sheets, A-101 to A-103, to try the Set tab; your own copies are never overwritten). It is a clinic floor plan with 27 review markups from four people, with clouds and revision tags, RFIs with replies and statuses, take-off measurements and counts, stamps, custom columns and a legend. Then do the same on one of your own sets.

  1. Read the sample. Open it. The Markups List (⌥⌘M) lists all 27 markups; sort it from its ⋯ menu by subject, sheet, author or status. Click a row to go to the markup; Properties shows its comments, replies, status and the custom columns (Ball in Court, Division, Due, Cost Impact).
  2. Open a real set. File ▸ Open… one PDF, or File ▸ Open Folder as Set… for a whole folder (the Set tab lists its files). Sheets run as a filmstrip under the drawing, labelled with their sheet numbers; click one, or use ⌘↑ / ⌘↓, or Go to Sheet (⌥⌘G). The command palette (⌘K) finds any command, sheet, tool or markup.
  3. Redline it. Cloud (C), Callout (Q), Text (T), Arrow (A), Pen (P), Highlight (H), Underline (U), Strikeout (D), Stamp (S). Shift-click a tool to keep it. Double-click text to edit it. ⌘Z undoes. Tools ▸ Stamps has Approved, For Construction and more; ⌘/ shows every shortcut. View ▸ Tool Palette (⌥⌘T) floats the tools beside the drawing.
  4. Revisions and RFIs. Draw a Revision Cloud (⇧C): it gets a numbered tag. Markups ▸ Revision Schedule… keeps the list. Give a markup a status and a reply from Properties, the way the sample's RFI 027 has one.
  5. Measure. Tools ▸ Set Scale… (or click the scale in the status bar), or calibrate against a known dimension (⇧⌥K). Then Length (⇧⌥L), Area (⇧⌥A), Perimeter, Count (⇧⌥C) and Volume (set its depth in Properties). Tools snap to the linework, the corners and baseline of text, placed pictures and your other markups, with a dashed guide when a point lines up with another markup (the Snap pull-down in the status bar turns each kind off; hold ⌘, Ctrl on Windows and Linux, to draw free); type a length like 12'6 and press Return. Markups ▸ Cut Out from Area takes an opening out of an area. Dynamic Fill (⇧⌥F, in the measuring group): hover inside a closed room to see the region its walls enclose, click to make an Area measurement of it; raise Fill gap to close a door opening. Tell us where it picks the wrong region.
  6. Take it off. In the Markups List, group by subject: each group shows its count and subtotal, and the totals sit under the list. Add a column from ⋯ ▸ Custom Columns…: try a Number column "Unit Cost" and a Formula column area * [Unit Cost]. Export CSV writes the same subtotals, and ⋯ ▸ Export to Excel… writes a workbook with numbers as numbers and a Totals row (open it in Excel and tell us if anything looks wrong: we have not yet). Markups ▸ Insert Legend… puts a live summary table on the sheet.
  7. Save, then open the PDF in Acrobat or Revu. Every markup and measurement should look the same there, with its author, date, subject and comments. Reopen it in Cella: nothing should be lost, including markups other people made in Revu.
  8. Handle a new issue. View ▸ Compare Documents… finds what changed between two issues of a sheet and clouds each change. View ▸ Compare With… (⇧⌘K) overlays them in red and blue, and View ▸ Overlay Pages… draws up to four sheets over each other. File ▸ Slip-Sheet from Newer Issue… swaps in the new issue with every markup in place.
  9. Reshape the set. The Sheets menu rotates, moves, inserts, extracts and deletes sheets (all undoable); double-click a sheet's name to rename it, or Tools ▸ Detect Sheet Numbers… reads them from the title blocks. Tools ▸ Sheet Index… reads the drawing index off the cover sheet; File ▸ Set ▸ Print Set… prints the whole set with a transmittal cover. File ▸ Split Document… splits a set by sheet range, every few sheets, bookmarks or discipline letter; Sheets ▸ Insert Blank Page…, Document ▸ Crop Pages… (or Draw Crop Box on the sheet) and Resize Pages… reshape sheets; File ▸ Export Sheets as Images… writes PNG or JPEG pictures; Apply Stamp to Every Sheet… stamps the whole set at once.
  10. Your Revu tool sets. In Revu, export a tool set (Tool Chest ▸ Manage Tool Sets ▸ Export, a .btx), then Tools ▸ Import Bluebeam Tool Set… in Cella. Punch keys and symbols drop in with one click; picture stamps come in as drawn linework.
  11. Two views at once. View ▸ Split View (⌘\) shows the document twice, side by side or stacked, with pan, zoom and sheets kept in step, or another file read-only beside it. Links, Spaces, scales and the firm's standards show in both panes.
  12. Tidy and number. Select several markups and use Markups ▸ Align, Distribute, Group (⌃⌘G) and Copy Style / Paste Style (⌥⌘C / ⌥⌘V). Tools ▸ Sequence… places boxes that count up (D-01, D-02…).
  13. Issue it. File ▸ Export Flattened Copy… bakes the markups in for the contractor while your working file stays editable. A plain save adds to the end of the file (so do page operations, flattening and headers), so a digitally signed drawing stays signed; Cella asks before a save that would have to rewrite a signed file. After 25 appended saves of an unsigned file it rewrites it once and says "Compacted"; File ▸ Compact File does it on demand. File ▸ Combine Files…, File ▸ Reduce File Size… and Document ▸ Headers & Footers… prepare a submittal.
  14. Redact. Select text (Edit ▸ Mark Text for Redaction) or drag Markups ▸ Mark Area for Redaction, then Markups ▸ Apply Redactions… writes a copy with what's under each mark removed. Mark every hit of a search at once with Mark Search Results for Redaction. Cella reads the copy back and says "Verified: nothing remains under 7 marks" or what is left. Search the copy for the words before you send it.
  15. Share your setup. File ▸ Profiles ▸ Export Profile… saves your tool sets, columns and settings as one file that the rest of the office imports. A profile can also carry the firm's standards (Manage Profiles ▸ Standards: each tool's colour, width and font, Subject and Status lists, default scale, with the items you lock shown disabled on every seat). On the Mac, Settings ▸ Shortcuts… changes any command's keys.
  16. Print. ⌘P: this sheet, all or a range, Fit to paper for a half-size set, tiling for full size, grayscale, or Print as PDF.
  17. Scanned sheets. Open a scan and choose Document ▸ Recognize Text (OCR)… for this sheet or all of them. Then search for a word on the scan, select and copy it, or try Tools ▸ Detect Sheet Numbers…. Tick Also write an invisible text layer into the file if other apps should search it too. Settings has a switch to read scanned title blocks for their sheet numbers automatically. On Linux it needs Tesseract installed. Tell us about words it misses or misreads.
  18. Sign it. Document ▸ Sign Digitally… signs the PDF with a certificate from your Keychain (Windows: your certificate store; Linux: a .pfx file), visible over your signature picture or in a box, or invisible, optionally certifying the document. Document ▸ Signatures… lists who signed and whether each is still valid. Add a markup and save: the signature should stay valid. Open it in Acrobat and tell us if it disagrees.
  19. Work offline. On a synced document, change a scale or add a link or Space on one computer, and watch it reach another. Disconnect, make changes, quit and reopen: they should still be waiting to send. Turn a sheet while synced, then Edit ▸ Undo: it should turn back on every copy.
  20. Retype the drawing's text. Choose Edit Text (⇧T; Shift+T on Windows and Linux), click a line of the drawing's own text, type and press Return. It is rewritten in the sheet in the same font and place; ⌘Z puts it back. Try a CAD export with a subset font and type a letter the sheet doesn't use: Cella should refuse it and name the letter. It does not work on a synced document.
  21. Find a symbol. In the search panel choose Visual, then Pick Symbol… and drag a box round a door swing, a receptacle or a fixture tag. Every other place it is drawn is listed (set this sheet or All Sheets, Rotations, Size and Match threshold). Place Counts makes a Count of the hits; Mark for Redaction marks them. Tell us about a symbol it misses or a wrong hit.
  22. Compare a whole issue. File ▸ Set ▸ Compare Sets… with the previous issue's folder (or file) and the new one: sheets are paired by sheet number, new and removed sheets are listed, each changed sheet is clouded, and a Compare Report PDF is written. Cancel before the clouding and nothing should change.
  23. Spaces from rooms. Tools ▸ Create Spaces from Rooms… on a plan: tick the rooms it proposes (named from the text inside), create them, and group the Markups List by Space. Tell us about a room it misses, merges or names badly.
  24. Views, slope and the take-off summary. In the Markups List, ⋯ ▸ Views ▸ Save View… keeps the sort, grouping, filter and columns under a name (Default, Review and Take-off are built in). Give a polylength a slope (1:12) in Properties ▸ Slope and watch 3D Length and Slope appear; select a polylength alone and use its Segments table to give each leg its own slope. File ▸ Export Take-off Summary… pivots the measurements by subject against space, layer, sheet or status as Excel or CSV (open it in Excel and tell us if anything looks wrong).
  25. Records and CAD. File ▸ Export PDF/A-2b Copy… shows what it will change or leave out before it saves (the copies of our test sets pass the veraPDF validator; if you have one, run it on a copy of a set of yours and tell us what it says, especially for a drawing in CMYK colour). File ▸ Export Markups to DXF… writes a sheet's or every sheet's markups in the sheet's real units; open it in AutoCAD or another CAD program and tell us whether lengths and text land where they should.
  26. Rename files, insert pictures. File ▸ Set ▸ Rename Files from Sheets… names a set's PDFs from their sheet numbers and titles (try it on a copy of a folder; the preview shows clashes, and File ▸ Set ▸ Undo Rename puts the names back). Sheets ▸ Insert Image Pages… (or drop photos on the Sheets filmstrip on the Mac) turns JPEG, PNG, HEIC and TIFF pictures into sheets.
  27. Project Tools. On a synced project, share a tool from the Tool Chest manager's Project Tools pull-down; it should appear under Tool Chest ▸ Project Tools for everyone on the project. This needs the October 2026 Atrium.
  28. Check a scan's words. After Recognize Text, View ▸ Show Recognized Text draws each word's box (amber where the recogniser was unsure). Double-click a wrong word to correct it; search should find the correction at once, and a later Recognize Text keeps it.

How to report

Use Help ▸ Report a Bug… (⌥⌘B on the Mac, Ctrl+Alt+B on Windows and Linux). It sends a screenshot of the window and the version, system and document details we need (the User Guide's "Reporting a problem" lists exactly what), and you choose whether the PDF goes too. If Cella crashed, it offers to send the crash report the next time it starts. You can also email support@sortedsol.com. The most useful report has:

  • what you did, step by step, and what you expected instead;
  • the PDF, or the one sheet it happens on (if it can't leave your office, tell us and we'll arrange something);
  • your computer: Mac, Windows or Linux, and the system version;
  • Cella's version (Cella ▸ About Cella on the Mac, Help ▸ About Cella on Windows and Linux) and whether it was licensed or on the trial;
  • a screenshot, if it's about how something looks.

We especially want to hear about:

  • a set that opens slowly, scrolls badly or shows wrong linework;
  • a Bluebeam-marked PDF where Cella shows markups differently from Revu, or loses anything after a save;
  • a measurement or a take-off total that disagrees with Revu at the same scale;
  • an Excel export that Excel complains about, or whose totals disagree with the Markups List;
  • a signed drawing that shows as altered in Acrobat after you only added markups and saved;
  • a sync project where a sheet or markup went missing on someone's copy;
  • the Revu feature you reach for that isn't here.

What is known not to work yet

  • The Windows and Linux versions have not been run on those systems yet; they carry the same features, but all of it is untested until that first run, so expect rough edges there and tell us about them. The Windows installer has not been run either: if it fails, use the zip and tell us. Visual Search has only a minimal control on Windows and Linux, and Project Tools show read-only there. Windows prints the copy as pictures at up to 300 dpi, and its text recognition reads upright text only. On Linux, Recognize Text needs Tesseract installed, and the Tool Palette and a detached Properties or Markups List open where the window manager puts them.
  • Seeing who else is on the sheet (with Atrium) is on the Mac only.
  • Atrium carries markups, sheets (turn, move, insert, delete, rename), custom columns, sequences, the revision schedule, bookmarks, and each sheet's scales, scale regions, links and Spaces; every member needs the 1.0 Cella, and an Atrium server from before 1.0 carries markups only. A sheet change made while synced is undone for everyone (a step whose sheet someone else deleted is skipped, with a note); an undo of an older link or Space step after someone else changed the same one puts your version back. Insert Blank Page, Crop Pages and Resize Pages are refused on a synced document (disconnect it to use them). When two people change the same thing at once the last change stands and the other person is told. Pages inserted offline are kept until they upload, up to 64 MB of them (past that Cella says so, and those are lost if it quits first).
  • After Resize Pages, links and Spaces keep their old places until the document is reopened, and bookmarks that point at a position keep their old numbers.
  • Dynamic Fill draws curved walls as straight segments, text or hatching touching a wall can notch the outline, and the outline can bulge into a closed doorway.
  • Form calculations (sums, products, simple formulas), formats (currency, percent, dates, phone numbers), range checks and date pickers work for Acrobat's standard scripts; other scripts (document-level scripts, conditionals, loops, custom functions) don't run (the status band says how many).
  • Edit Text changes the drawing's own text a line at a time, only with letters its font carries, and not inside blocks, Type 3 fonts or vertical text; it is refused on a document synced through Atrium.
  • Recognize Text reads handwriting, rotated and very small lettering only as well as the system's recogniser does; the first run on a Mac can take about 45 seconds while macOS prepares it; it asks you to save first when page operations are unsaved.
  • Digital signatures cannot sign encrypted PDFs, add no trusted timestamp or revocation data, check a certificate against the computer's own trust settings (a self-signed certificate shows as not trusted) and put the box at the bottom right. A placed signature is a picture. A document certified to allow no changes (or only form filling and signatures) takes markups only as a copy (Save a Copy…).
  • Redaction keeps a letter less than about 15 per cent under a mark and a line much wider than the mark, and removes bookmarks only for marks made from a search; tiling-pattern cells and mesh-shading data are clipped rather than edited. Check the copy before you send it.
  • Cut-outs show open in Acrobat and Revu and are saved and read in the shape Revu is believed to use, not yet checked against Revu itself: if a Revu area with openings reads as its full area in Cella, or a Cella cut-out measures uncut in Revu, send us the file.
  • The Excel workbooks and the DXF drawing Cella writes have not been opened in Excel or AutoCAD yet, and the PDF/A copy has not been checked against a drawing in CMYK colour. The DXF carries no arrowheads, fills, count symbols or stamp pictures.
  • The .bax markup file Cella writes has not been opened in Revu itself yet; Revu image stamps and file attachments come in whole, but attachments stay read-only. Revu tool sets with sequence tools or drawing-mode counts are imported from our best reading of the format; send us one if you have it.
  • Deleting sheets, and other saves that have to rewrite the file, invalidate a digital signature; Cella asks first. Plain saves of markups keep it.
  • The Profiles window has no Escape to close, and in the Status values editor Return starts a new line.

The beta period and your license

The beta runs from now until we publish Cella 1.0 on www.sortedsolution.com; we'll tell you the date. During the beta, Cella updates itself: it checks once a day and asks before installing.

When the beta ends, your key stays valid. You keep Cella on the same terms as a paying customer: one computer and one iPad per key and every 1.x update. You don't need to do anything.

Privacy

Cella has no account and sends no drawings, markups or usage data anywhere. It makes two kinds of request on its own: the daily update check, which sends the app version, whether a trial or a license is active, and your operating system version, nothing that identifies you, and which you can turn off in Settings; and, once you've entered a key, a license check with Lemon Squeezy about once a day, which sends the key and a name for your computer. If you try Atrium, markups go only to your firm's Atrium server, whether you run it or we host it for you.