Wow Dave. I never thought about producing invoices in LO. It makes me think that we could also produce field reports, field sketches, RFI & Shop Drawings logs & responses - keeping everything in one related folder.
You can do all sorts of things with LayOut that don’t have anything to do with SketchUp. When I was still an Instructor in the Mayo College of Medicine, I used LayOut to create a variety of handouts for the nurse anesthesia program and for the residents. It worked perfectly for what I needed.
I’ve used Lo very successfully with SO. My weakness concerning these forms and other documents is to get a better handle on auto text.
I also may have missed the boat on updated images in LO. When I revise a SO image, I typically save the scene & import into LO. Am I missing a step where the Lo viewports can be set up to automatically adjust to the
SO revision.
I dont use SketchUp for Architecture/Woodwork so I am very glad it is separate otherwise it would just be extra clutter in the UI, one of the reasons I like using SketchUp is that it’s so clean.
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There are a couple of options. You can use autotext that you edit in Document Setup or you could insert XLSX files as tables. And a table doesn’t have to have more than one cell referenced. Or you could have a table of text entities but different text boxes/tables referring to different parts of the XLSX.
I assume you mean SU instead of SO?
If you open the SketchUp file from LayOut (right click on the viewport and choose Open with SketchUp, changes you save to the SketchUp file will automatically be shown when you go back to LayOut. To make this work properly you want to make sure you aren’t modifying the scenes in LayOut, though.
I am trying to understand your second question better, to reply.
To clarify, when you write "revise a SO (SU) image, are you describing revising your SU model or revising your SU scene or maybe both, between LO Document Setup > References > Updates?
yep - SU :). Right clicking and opening in the LO viewport worked perfectly. Thank you. I’ll let you know how the autotext works for me.
I have to say, creating interior elevations and other similar views in SketchUp are unnecessarily complex and I think SketchUp could improve scene setups within before exporting to Layout. There is too much back and forth which takes too much loading time and there would be a lot of benefits of setting up sheet views inside of SketchUp natively. I mean, just compare drawing linework in SketchUp versus Layout, SketchUp is way faster and much better for this type of thing. Layout operates in a totally different fashion and is quite unintuitive for those who love SketchUp for its simplicity.
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It doesn’t have to be unnecessarily complex.
Much has been said of Nick Sonder’s workflow. I have his book and watching Mike Brightman’s YouTube videos I have developed a workflow that suits me involving a master model, various SU template files for elevations, plans, sections, etc. that reference the master model and a number of Layout templates appropriate for the various architectural projects I do.
And I’m constantly learning. I have recently re-discovered Scrapbooks. There’s always a tip from the forum or a video.
As for modeling in SU some of Curic’s paid for plugins have made my modeling much more productive and enjoyable.
When I compare how much more productive I am now to a few years ago!
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Hi Dave, how would you add up numbers in Layout or calculate tax as you would in excel? Is there a function I am missing? We use layout quite a lot and am intrigued to know more.
I wouldn’t do it in LayOut. I would set up a spreadsheet in Excel or other spreadsheet program and insert the .xlsx into LO as I referred to in my earlier reply. If the numbers change, the .xlsx file can be edited and the reference updated basically like you woul do with a SketchUp model.
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In Vectorworks you can model in 3d and make Sheets of you models for presentations.
In Auto Cad and Turbocad the same capabilities exist. Model Space and Paper Space.
How is that functionally any different than Sketchup (Model Space) and Layout (Paper Space)?
If you are really a bundle of nerves about the issue: create an Icon on your desktop that starts both Sketchup and Layout at the same time and call it whatever makes you happy.
The difference is, is that SketchUp is a joy to work with and LO not.
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It’s a matter of opinion, I guess. I enjoy working with LayOut.
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For small projects it is great…for large projects it is a drag. 
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I guess I haven’t had any problems even with large projects. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.
Maybe you can send me a large project (multiple stories project for a building or interior) of yours and its LO file! I’m curious how it will run on my system! 
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It would be nice if I could but those all have NDAs.
Send me one of your large projects and I can see how it works on my system 
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