Smart Count: find text with AI

Plans count things with tags: W1 on every window, GFI on every outlet, TJI on every joist callout. Smart Count · Text finds every place a tag appears and turns the matches into a count object, one marker per match, ready to price.

Smart Count reads the text Plankore has already recognised on your pages. If a fresh upload still shows Indexing… in Find text, give it a minute first. For plain searching and copying text, see Find and copy text or images.

Count a tag

1. In the toolbar's Smart tools group, click Smart Count. It's the count button with the small AI mark. Its chevron (Choose what to count) lets you switch between Text and Symbol; Image is marked Soon. The button remembers your last choice.
2. The Smart Count · Text panel opens over the canvas. You can drag it by its header.
3. Tell it what to count. Either type in the Text to count field, whose placeholder reads Type the text, or drag a region containing it, or drag a box around the tag on the sheet with Move. The words inside the box fill the field.
4. Under Search in, choose Current page, All pages or Select a region. For a region, drag a box on the sheet around the part you want searched. The panel then reads Drag a new region to change the search area.
5. Click Search. The panel reads Counting… briefly, then lists every match with a checkbox. With All pages, each match shows its page number.
6. Untick any you don't want, or double-click a highlighted match on the sheet. The label reads Double-click to remove from count or Double-click to add to count. Select all and the 8 of 12 selected count keep track.
7. Click Auto count. The New Count (8) popup opens. Name the object, choose its class and colour, and save.

The matches become one count object in the Takeoff tab with a marker on each match. From here it's an ordinary count: move a marker, delete one, or add more by hand. See Takeoff objects: area, linear and count.

<img src="/help/ai-takeoff/smart-count-text/1.jpg" alt="The Smart Count · Text panel searching 4'-4" on the current page: 8 of 8 matches selected, each match boxed on the plan, and the Auto count button" width="645">

From a box on the sheet

You can also start from the plan. With Move, drag a box around a tag and right-click inside the box. The top of the menu shows Smart Count · Text with the captured words after it, so you can see what you're about to count. Choosing it opens the panel with the field already filled. If the box holds no readable text the row is greyed out and reads No text in this area.

How matching works

Matching is exact on the text, not fuzzy. W1 finds W1, not W10 on its own; a match is the tag as written on the sheet, so check a couple of results before you count. Searching is a scan of the page's text index, so it's instant and has no sensitivity setting.

If something goes wrong

• No matches for “W1” in this scope. Try a wider scope, or different words. The tag isn't on the pages searched, or it's drawn as a symbol rather than text. Try All pages, or use Smart Count: find symbols.
• Showing the first 500 of 640 matches, narrow the scope to count the rest. Search a region or one page at a time.
• The text could not be counted. Check your connection and click Search again.
• Dragging a box replaces my typed text. While the panel is open and hasn't searched yet, any box you drag is a pick. Search first, or set Search in to Select a region before dragging.
• The sheet is a scan and nothing is found. Text recognition may still be running for that file. Check its badge on Project Details.