Viewers

Teralo opens documents in the browser rather than downloading them, and the viewer you get depends on the file. There is nothing to install and nothing to configure, and the same viewer opens a file wherever you meet it: in the documents register, on a submittal, on an inspection, inside a procurement package or attached to a mail.

What opens in what

PDF opens in the PDF viewer: pages, zoom, pan and text search. This is the one you will use most, because drawings and specifications are mostly PDFs.

DWG opens in the CAD viewer, so a drawing issued in its native format can be read without AutoCAD. DXF files upload and are stored, but they do not have a viewer of their own and fall back to downloading.

Excel and CSV open in a spreadsheet viewer, which is enough for reading a schedule without pulling it into Excel.

IFC opens in a 3D model viewer, for BIM models issued as IFC.

Images (JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP) open directly.

Anything else downloads rather than opening, which is the right behaviour rather than an error.

Comparing two documents

The viewer has a split view: two documents side by side, each with its own controls, in panes you can drag to resize. It is the fastest way to check a revision against the one before it, or an architectural drawing against the structural.

Split view works with every viewer type, so you can put a PDF beside a DWG or a drawing beside a schedule. One limitation is worth knowing: only one DWG renders at a time. Open a second and it waits for the first to hand over, which it does automatically when you switch away from it.

Working with several documents

Documents open in tabs, each with its own zoom, page and tool state, so moving between three drawings does not mean losing your place in any of them.

Large files

The upload limit is 5GB, which is set for real IFC models and large drawing sets rather than as a theoretical maximum. Very large files upload in chunks, so an interrupted upload does not mean starting again from nothing.

A large model still takes time to open the first time. That is the file rather than the connection, and it is worth knowing before assuming something has failed.

On a phone and off the network

The viewers work on the mobile app, which is what makes a drawing readable at the point where somebody is standing in front of the thing it describes.

Offline is more limited and deliberately so: a document has to have been cached before you lost signal. See Working offline for what is available and what is not.

Marking up

Every PDF and DWG opens with the markup tools available, subject to your permissions. See Markups and annotations.