Complete guide: how to use auto ballooning feature in QA-CAD

Step 1: Open your PDF drawing file in QA-CAD first. Click Add QA symbol from the QA menu. Tick Attach Attributes and Capture Dimension. Then select ‘Group dimensions capture’ and press the OK button (You can adjust the balloon position by XY offset values).

select auto for auto ballooning feature

Step 2: Move a mouse pointer to the left top of the capture target group (29.65, 27.64, 10.50,3,0, and 9 in the below image example).

Select PDF as output option


Step 3: Press the left-click button and hold it. Then you can enclose the capture targets by drawing the rectangle.

Select PDF as output option


Step 4: Once you complete to enclose the targets by the rectangle, double click. Then QA-CAD instantly draws automated balloons to all selected targets. At the same time, QA-CAD extract dimensions, tolerances, and notes from the PDF.



Step 5: If you click one of the balloons, you can confirm what information balloon stores such as dimension, upper tolerance, lower tolerance, and notes.

Select PDF as output option

If you have unnecessary balloons, select ‘Delete QA symbol’ from QA menu and click the unnecessary balloons to delete. If you need to correct deleted balloon number(s) in the balloon number sequence, select ‘Renumber’ from QA menu. Then the balloon number sequence will be corrected (example [1,2,4,5,7,8,10] --> [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]). Also you can easily change a balloon's number. You just need to double click a balloon, then the balloon's Add/edit QA attributes symbol window opens. You type a new balloon number and press the OK button.

You can also undo last auto-ballooned result with pressing [Ctrl] and [Z] keys together, but only if done straight after the operation, and there is currently no redo function in the QA-CAD software.