# How to Mark Up Cut Sheets So the Engineer Doesn't Kick Your Submittal Back Trim the catalog, strike what you aren't supplying, put deviations on the transmittal, and check it yourself, so the reviewer confirms instead of hunts. A marked-up cut sheet answers one question before the reviewer asks it: which product, with which options and ratings, are you actually supplying? Send only the pages that apply, mark what you're supplying, strike what you aren't, list every deviation on the transmittal, and have someone on your team check it before it leaves. The package comes back **Revise and Resubmit**. You flip to the comments expecting a problem with the equipment. There isn't one. The comment reads "Clearly identify the model, options and ratings being furnished." The relay was fine. The transmitter was fine. The reviewer just couldn't find them in 140 pages of catalog, and you lost three weeks to a highlighter. Most kickbacks on product data aren't about what you picked. They're about a reviewer who can't tell what you picked. Here's how to mark up cut sheets so the package gets checked, not puzzled over. ## Cut the catalog down to the pages that apply The manufacturer's PDF was written for every customer they have. Your reviewer only cares about one of them. A 60-page product family catalog with your part on page 23 tells the engineer you didn't take the time, and it hands them 59 pages to hunt through. Keep the pages that prove your selection: - **The ordering or selection page** that builds your catalog number. - **The specifications or ratings table** with the values the spec constrains: voltage, enclosure rating, temperature range, listing. - **The dimensions and wiring page**, if the spec or the panel layout depends on them. - **The certifications page**, when the spec names a listing. Drop the marketing spread, the family photos, and the accessories you aren't buying. If a reviewer wants the full catalog, they'll ask, and they almost never do. ## Mark what you're supplying, strike what you aren't Most Division 01 sections say the same thing in different words: identify the product furnished, indicate the options selected, and delete or cross out what doesn't apply. Both halves matter. **Mark the complete catalog number** in the ordering table, and each option code that builds it. Then mark the row of the ratings table that proves each value the spec demands. A 24 VDC coil requirement is answered by a mark on 24 VDC, not by a sentence in your cover letter. The details of doing that well are in [catalog number highlighting](/learn/catalog-number-highlighting). **Strike the options you aren't supplying.** This is the half people skip. When a datasheet lists four enclosure ratings and only one is marked, a careful reviewer still wonders whether the other three are in play. A single line through the rows you aren't providing, or a box that blanks them out, removes the question. It also protects you: nobody can later claim you submitted the NEMA 1 version when NEMA 1 is crossed out on the record copy. Keep the marks readable for everyone. Packages get printed in grayscale and reviewed by people who can't tell red from green. A highlight for "supplied" and a plain strike line for "not supplied" read the same on any printer. ## Put deviations on the transmittal, not on page 37 If your product departs from the spec, say so up front. Most 01 33 00 sections say a deviation you didn't identify isn't approved, even if the package came back stamped. A note in the margin of page 37 doesn't count as identifying it. Neither does hoping nobody notices. List each deviation on the transmittal: the tag, the spec article, what the spec asks for, and what you're providing instead. "Spec 2.3.B requires 316 stainless enclosure. Provided: 304 stainless, per attached letter." Then cloud the same value on the cut sheet so the reviewer can find the evidence in one flip. When there are none, say that too: "Deviations from contract documents: none." What else belongs on that sheet is in [what a transmittal has to say](/learn/what-a-transmittal-has-to-say). A deviation you call out gets a decision. A deviation the reviewer finds on their own gets a kickback and a little less trust on your next package. ## Have your team review it before the engineer does You've stared at these PDFs all afternoon. You're the last person who'll notice that page 12 is the wrong voltage variant. Hand the package to someone else on your team for fifteen minutes with the equipment schedule and the spec section next to it. What they're checking: 1. Every line on the schedule has a cut sheet, and every cut sheet has a mark. 2. The marked catalog number matches the schedule and the quote, character for character. 3. Every value the spec constrains has a mark that proves it. 4. Every deviation on the transmittal is clouded on its cut sheet, and every clouded value is on the transmittal. That last one catches more than you'd think. If you want the spreadsheet side of this check done earlier, see [BOM preflight](/learn/bom-preflight-control-system-submittal). ## Flatten it, and keep it for the next job Before you send, flatten the markups into the PDF. Live annotations can be moved, hidden by the reviewer's viewer settings, or stripped when the GC's platform re-saves the file. Flattened marks look the same in every viewer and on paper. Then save the marked-up sheet where you'll find it next time. You'll submit the same relay, the same power supply, and the same transmitter on the next job, and the one after that. Marking it up from scratch every time is the most avoidable afternoon in this business. Keep one marked copy per part, and the next package starts mostly done. How to set that up is in [building a reusable parts library](/learn/reusable-parts-library). ## How Submittal Kit handles this Marking up the same cut sheets job after job is the part of the package nobody wants to do. In Submittal Kit you attach a datasheet to the part once, and its pages are scanned for that part's catalog number. **Verify highlights** checks each match, and **Review highlights** lets you reject a bad one. Confirmed highlights are drawn on the sheet when the package compiles, under a legend band naming the part number and tags. Set the project's **Datasheet scope** to relevant pages only and just the highlighted pages ship, so the 60-page catalog goes out as the pages that matter. Check **Always full sheet** on a document that should go complete. **Annotate** adds your own highlights, notes, and drawings, and those marks live with the part, so they show up in every submittal and O&M manual that uses it. On the **Checks** tab, a **Catalog number** row flags a part whose catalog number appears nowhere in its datasheet, which is usually the wrong document on the right part. The transmittal carries the deviations boxes and a notes block for your deviation statement. See [Part documents](/help/part-documents), [Checks before you submit](/help/checks-before-you-submit), and [submittal packages](/features/submittal-packages). *Disclosure: I build [Submittal Kit](/), and the markup steps above work with any PDF editor.* --- Submittal Kit · Field Guides · Updated 2026-10-28 Canonical: https://submittalkit.com/learn/mark-up-cut-sheets