How to highlight an exact zone (not just a point) on a plan

How to highlight an exact zone, not just a point, on a plan

You’re standing in front of a bay of cladding that’s all wrong — not one panel, the whole run. You drop a pin on the plan, and immediately it under-sells the problem: a single dot says “something here,” when what you mean is “all of this, from here to there.” The next person opens it and asks the obvious question: how far does this go?

A point is the right tool for a cracked tile. It’s the wrong tool for a zone. Here’s how to mark an area on a construction plan instead — so the note covers exactly the region it concerns, and the “how far?” question is answered before anyone asks it.

When a dot under-describes the problem

Some issues are genuinely a single location: one socket, one crack, one fixing. A point pin is perfect for those. But a lot of what you flag on site isn’t a point at all — it’s a span. A whole bay of facade. A stretch of slab that’s out of level. A section of corridor with the same defect every two metres. A room that all needs re-skimming.

For those, a dot forces the reader to guess the extent. And guessing the extent is exactly where remote understanding breaks down.

Use the area pin to mark the whole zone

The fix is the area pin. The flow is the same tap you already know, with one different choice:

• Tap the plan where the zone begins.
• From the menu, choose area instead of a point.
• Drag a rectangle across the region — the bay, the slab, the corridor section.

That’s it. The note is now attached to the whole zone, not a single coordinate. Anyone who opens it sees the extent at a glance, on the drawing they already recognise. This is the heart of any area annotation app: the annotation matches the shape of the problem.

Add the voice, text and photo to the zone

An area pin carries everything a point pin does. Add a voice note — “this whole bay is sitting proud, needs pulling back to line before we go further” — and PinMy auto-transcribes it across 20+ languages, so the zone holds your spoken explanation and searchable text. Add a photo of the run. Now the region, the description and the evidence travel together as one record.

@mention, assign, and it behaves like any pin

Marking the zone isn’t the end — it’s the start of getting it fixed. @mention the subcontractor or foreman and assign the area pin, exactly as you would a point. It lands on the Kanban board (To-do, In Progress, Done) that’s the live state of your pins, and when the bay is sorted you mark it resolved and it dims on the plan. An area pin is a full citizen, not a second-class annotation.

Point or area: a quick rule of thumb

Use a point when you could put your finger on one spot — a socket, a crack, a fixing. Use an area when the honest answer to “where exactly?” is “this whole stretch.” If you find yourself typing “from here to the column” or “the entire east bay,” that’s the signal to drag a rectangle instead of dropping a dot. The same instinct runs through a day in the life of a site supervisor: capture the problem in the shape it actually has.

Why the extent matters for the people who weren’t there

The reader of your note is usually not you, and usually not on site. They can’t see what you saw. A point makes them ask; an area tells them. That single difference — extent made explicit — is what turns a flagged zone into something a remote colleague can scope, price and plan around without a phone call. When the issue needs a freehand mark inside the zone too, you can pair it with draw mode to flag a defect freehand.

How it reads in a report later

Because the area pin is a normal pin, it flows into the same record everything else does. When you export the web PDF report, the zone shows up with its note, photo and status — so a span of work reads as a span, not a misleadingly precise dot. (The web report is useful today and still maturing, so treat it as evolving.)

FAQ

How do I mark an area on a construction plan instead of a point? Tap the plan, choose area from the menu, and drag a rectangle over the region. The note then attaches to the whole zone — a bay, a slab, a corridor — instead of a single coordinate.

When should I use an area pin vs a point pin? Use a point for a single spot (a socket, a crack); use an area when the issue spans a region and “how far does this go?” is the obvious question. If you’d describe it as “this whole stretch,” drag a rectangle.

Does an area pin work like a normal pin? Yes — it carries voice, text and photo, can be @mentioned and assigned, lands on the Kanban board, and dims when resolved, exactly like a point pin.

What PinMy is NOT

The area pin marks a region on a view of your plan — it’s an annotation, not a CAD edit; you’re not changing a drawing file or its geometry. PinMy isn’t a measurement or quantity-takeoff tool, and it won’t replace your project-management system. With 3D models, a pin marks a point in space — a dated snapshot — not a model element, and it doesn’t read element data. What PinMy does well is let a note match the shape of the problem: a point for a point, a zone for a zone.

Try it on your next zone

Next time you reach for a dot to describe a whole run, drag a rectangle instead and see how much clearer it reads.

• See how it works: pinmy.co
• Book a 15-minute demo: tidycal.com/pinmy