Preferences and profiles

Make MarkupRight work the way you do. Change how it behaves in Preferences, keep a window layout for each kind of job as a Profile, build your own toolbars and keys, and, if you look after your team's computers, set policy for everyone.

Expert·14 minute read

You'll learn

Which settings matter, how Profiles differ from preferences, and how to back up and share both.

Preferences

MarkupRight ▸ Preferences Ctrl+,

Before big changes

Preferences ▸ Admin ▸ Options ▸ Backup saves everything in one zip file.

Preferences or Profile?

MarkupRight keeps two kinds of settings. Knowing which is which tells you where to look.

Priya S., for example, keeps a Review Profile and a Takeoff Profile with different panels in front. Her name on markups is the same in both, because it's a preference.

Preferences

Preferences has more than 200 settings in ten groups. Most people change a handful once.

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1. Search. Type snap to list every snapping option.
2. Groups. Ten of them, from General to Integrations.
3. Pages. The chosen group's pages.
4. Settings. Some show a tip when you hover over them.
5. Import, Export and Include Profiles. Move settings between computers.
6. OK, Cancel and Apply. Apply stays gray until you change something.

The groups and their pages

Settings most people change

Reset Hidden Messages (Options) brings back messages you chose not to see again. For saving and recovery, see Create, save and export.

Settings that need a restart

Three settings wait for the next start: Language (General ▸ Options), Rendering Engine (Advanced ▸ 2D Rendering) and Extended Debugging (Admin ▸ Options). Change one and Preferences shows Restart MarkupRight to apply: … above its buttons. Everything else applies when you click OK or Apply. In this version, Language offers System and English (US).

Settings this version doesn't know are kept; values that don't fit are listed as not imported. A file from a newer MarkupRight is refused.

Back up, restore or reset

Three buttons on Preferences ▸ Admin ▸ Options look after everything at once:

• Backup zips your preferences, Profiles, window positions, tool sets, styles, stamps and templates into the backups folder (see Where settings live), named for the time in UTC, such as 20261113-171500.zip.
• Restore asks for a backup, then Replace your settings and profiles with the backup …? Backups from a newer MarkupRight are refused.
• Reset asks Set every preference back to its default? A backup of your settings is made first. Documents with unsaved changes are offered for saving and closed first. Restart MarkupRight to finish.

Profiles

A Profile is a saved workspace. MarkupRight comes with one, Default; make your own for each kind of work, or import your team's. A Profile holds:

• the window layout: splits, docks and where every panel sits;
• the toolbars (yours too), where they sit, Lock, and the Full Screen toolbar;
• your keyboard shortcut changes;
• how new documents open: page layout, zoom and rulers;
• markup looks saved with Set as Default, status models, Markups List columns and saved filters, and security presets (never their passwords);
• links to the tool sets, line-style sets and hatch sets it uses.

It doesn't hold your open documents or your preferences.

Switch and save

To switch, choose MarkupRight ▸ Profiles and a name, click Profile at the right end of the navigation bar, or press Ctrl+K and type Switch to Profile. The window rebuilds around your open documents, whose tabs gather in the first view.

Changes save to the active Profile by themselves: about half a second after you make them, when you switch and when you quit. Save Profile saves now. Save Profile As… saves the layout under a new name and makes it active; a name can't contain / \ : * ? " < > | or repeat an existing one.

Manage Profiles

Choose MarkupRight ▸ Profiles ▸ Manage Profiles…:

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1. Active. Pick a Profile and click OK to switch to it.
2. Profiles. Those from a shared folder are marked (shared).
3. Import… and Export…. Import adds a .tpx file as a Profile named after the file. Export writes the selected Profile as a .tpx; Include Dependencies copies the tool sets, line-style sets and hatch sets it uses beside it.
4. Add…, Modify… and Delete. Add saves the current layout as a new Profile and switches to it; Modify… renames. You can't rename or delete Default, or delete the active Profile.
5. Save Profile Changes Automatically. Off, changes are kept only when you choose Save Profile.
6. Location. Click … to read Profiles from a shared folder too; ▼ ▸ Use the Local Folder Only stops that.

Import refuses a name that's taken, whatever its capitals: A profile named … exists. Delete the local profile or rename the file, then import again. Opening a .tpx file, dropping it on the window or double-clicking it (Windows and Linux) imports it too. Importing doesn't switch Profiles.

Shared Profiles for a team

Put the team's .tpx files in a shared folder, such as one on a network drive, and set each person's Location to it. Shared Profiles are read-only: rearrange one and the changes last only for the session, unless Save Profile keeps them as your own "name (local)". If the folder can't be reached, MarkupRight uses the copy it kept last time and says so. A Profile file that can't be read is renamed to end in .tpx.bad, and Default loads instead.

Toolbars

MarkupRight has 22 built-in toolbars. File, Markup, Font and Alignment show at first; the rest wait in Tools ▸ Toolbars. Toolbars, their places and Lock are saved in the active Profile. (The Properties toolbar under the menus follows your selection and can't be customized.)

• Show or hide a toolbar: choose Tools ▸ Toolbars and click its name. Highlighted names are showing.
• Move a toolbar: drag its grip (the dotted handle at its start) into another row, to the top or bottom edge of the workspace for a new row, to the left or right edge for a new column, or anywhere else to float it.
• Lock them: Tools ▸ Toolbars ▸ Lock removes the grips so nothing moves by accident. Choose it again to unlock.

The Customize Toolbars dialog

Choose Tools ▸ Toolbars ▸ Customize… to change any toolbar or build your own. Only commands that work in this version are listed.

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1. Categories and Filter. Narrow the list by menu, or by part of a name.
2. Commands. Everything you can put on a toolbar.
3. Add buttons. Add a command, a separator or a space.
4. Toolbar. Every toolbar; a tick shows it.
5. Items. The selected toolbar's buttons, in order. Untick one to hide it without removing it.

Hover over a button in the dialog to see its name:

Apply shows your changes and keeps the dialog open; OK (Enter) keeps them and closes; Cancel (Esc) throws them away. To change the Full Screen toolbar, right-click it in Full Screen and choose Customize….

Keyboard shortcuts

Change any command's shortcut in MarkupRight ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts. Changes are saved in the active Profile, so a Takeoff Profile can have different keys from a Review Profile. For every default key, see Keyboard shortcuts.

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1. Search. Type part of a command's name.
2. Commands. In two groups, Tools and Commands.
3. The chosen command. Its Shortcut button, Reassign and Remove appear here.
4. Restore Defaults, Import, Export XML and Export List. See Export, import and restore.

Remove takes a command's key away. Two kinds of key are refused, with the reason: a number key on its own, because 1–9 run the first nine tools in My Tools; and keys the system keeps, such as Ctrl+Tab, Alt+Tab, Ctrl+Space and Alt+F4.

Export, import and restore

• Export XML saves your changes (keys that differ from the defaults) as MarkupRight shortcuts.xml, to import elsewhere.
• Export List saves every command that has a key as MarkupRight shortcuts.txt, one per line with a tab before the key: a ready-made cheat sheet.
• Import reads a shortcuts file or a whole settings file. Imported keys take over from commands that had them; anything refused is listed in a notice.
• Restore Defaults puts every key back as it came, once you click OK.

Administrator and IT Expert

MarkupRight ▸ Administrator opens Preferences on Admin ▸ Options. It's a shortcut, not a lock: anyone can open it, and it doesn't stop anyone changing settings.

Admin settings

IT policy: policy.json

To set updates and the licence agreement for every user of a computer, put a policy.json file in the machine-wide folder:

{
  "eula_accepted": true,
  "updates_enabled": false,
  "channel": "stable"
}

Copies installed from the MSI package never update themselves; deploy each new MSI instead (see Install and activate).

Logs

MarkupRight writes one log a day, markupright-YYYY-MM-DD.log, in the logs folder of its data folder, and keeps 14 days. Only warnings and errors are written unless Extended Debugging is on. Logs stay on your computer: nothing is sent anywhere.

Where settings live

Profiles are in Profiles inside the settings folder; logs, backups and recovery copies are in logs, backups and recovery inside the data folder. On Linux, $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $XDG_DATA_HOME move them.