Whether you are using Stratosphere as a standalone or you are using Stratosphere with Excel, you can take the descriptions in your Layers list and organize them into categories.
When you at the Layers list you will see the descriptions you have either entered by hand or transferred over from your Excel spreadsheet. The descriptions are sitting in what we like to call the queue in the order they were imported.
Below the layers is a button that says Categories. If you click on the Add button next to Categories the software will allow you to type in a name for the category. In this example let's use First Floor for the category name. You can Drag-and-Drop the layer descriptions that are currently in the queue down to the category. Sometimes the drag-and-drop can be a little finicky and it takes a little practice to get the process down.
Once you have the line items/layers from the first floor organized into the First Floor category, you can create a new category called Second Floor. You would drag the items that will be unique to the 2nd floor from the queue into the Second Floor category.
For some, a category may be Framing, Painting, Insulation, Drywall, etc. For others, a category may be Unit A1, Unit A2, Unit A3, etc. You control what you will use for the category name.
When you print your takeoff report, the line items will be neatly organized into categories.
To recap, you will take the items in the Layers list and organize them into categories by clicking on the Category button. Type in the category name and then start dragging and dropping the descriptions into the category. Once you are done with a category, for example the First Floor, you can minimize the category and then expand out the second floor category.
In Excel, if you right-click on a blank quantity cell you will see Stratosphere listed in the Excel right-click menu. Under Stratosphere you will see all of your layers, organized neatly into categories.