FAI
Documentation
Software.
Offline-first desktop tool for engineers creating balloon annotations on technical drawings. Built for First Article Inspection (FAI) documentation — place balloons, capture inspection data, and export AS9102-ready reports to PDF and Excel. No subscription, no cloud.
Windows 10/11 · macOS 12+ · Linux · No subscription · No account required
Features
Everything for inspection documentation.
Balloon Annotations
Place numbered balloons on PDF and TIFF drawings with precision. Each balloon carries a full inspection record including designator, requirement, and measurement result.
Grid Zone Tracking
Configure intelligent grid zones (A1, B2, C3…) per drawing page. Balloon locations are automatically recorded as you annotate, eliminating manual position tracking.
GD&T Support
14 geometric tolerance symbols with a built-in feature control frame assembler. Define your own tolerancing profiles and share them across your team for consistent inspection standards.
Verification Mode
A dedicated inspection table lists every balloon with its requirement, measured result, and automatic PASS/FAIL status. Rows are colour-coded green or red so non-conformances are immediately visible — ideal for FAI sign-off reviews.
PDF & Excel Export
Export annotated drawings as PDFs with balloons overlaid at full resolution. Generate colour-coded XLSX inspection tables ready for AS9102 first article inspection records and quality packages.
Automatic OCR Reading
Optical character recognition reads dimension values and text directly from your drawing, pre-filling balloon requirements and reducing manual data entry errors.
Why BallooNote exists
BallooNote was built out of direct experience with First Article Inspection — numbering balloons by hand on printed drawings, then transferring every dimension and result into a spreadsheet one by one. The process was slow, error-prone, and overdue for a proper tool.
The existing solutions were either priced for enterprise procurement or built without a real understanding of the FAI workflow. BallooNote was designed to fill that gap: a focused desktop tool that handles the full inspection documentation process without the overhead.
It runs entirely on your machine. Your drawings never leave it.
Pricing
One-time purchase. No subscription.
Buy once, own it forever. Updates included.
Demo
No credit card
- ✓Balloon placement on PDF/TIFF
- ✓Grid zone tracking (A1, B2…)
- ✓Verification mode
- ✓GD&T feature control frames
- ✓Undo/redo system
- ✓Export disabled
Single User
one-time
- ✓Everything in Demo
- ✓PDF export with overlaid balloons
- ✓Excel (XLSX) export
- ✓Colour-coded inspection table
- ✓Priority email support
- ✓Lifetime licence
Team Plan
one-time · up to 5 seats
- ✓Everything in Single User
- ✓Up to 5 named users
- ✓Shared project files (.bln)
- ✓Centralised licence management
- ✓Priority support
- ✓Lifetime licence
Secure checkout via Stripe · StartApp House Limited
FAQ