Managing PDFs is a key part of any team project, and Archicad offers several tools to keep your documentation up to date, editable, and ready to share. This article walks through how to update PDF drawings, make them fully editable, and publish clean, organized PDF sets from your layouts.
Update linked PDF drawings
When a revised PDF arrives, you do not need to reinsert or manually realign it. Updating the linked drawing keeps the position, scale, and any Archicad annotations you have already added.
On your layout, select the existing PDF drawing.
Right-click and choose Link Drawing from the context menu.
Browse to the updated PDF file, select it, and confirm.
The layout refreshes instantly, showing the new version in exactly the same place with all your dimensions, labels, and markups preserved.
This workflow keeps your documentation coordinated while avoiding repetitive rework on each revision.
Replace page
You can relink to any page inside the same multi‑page PDF without redoing the drawing frame.
Right-click the placed PDF drawing again.
Choose Replace page from the menu.
Select the correct page number from the PDF.
Confirm to update the drawing in place.
In just a few clicks, the drawing updates while keeping its position, cropping, and any existing Archicad annotations intact.
Make PDFs fully editable with Explode
Sometimes you need more than a linked reference—you need to directly edit linework, fills, and text from a consultant’s PDF. If the PDF contains vector information, Archicad can convert it into native 2D elements using the Explode command.
Select the placed PDF drawing in a worksheet or layout.
Right-click and choose Explode into Current View (or Explode, depending on context).
In the dialog, choose how to convert fills, lines, and text, then confirm.
The PDF is transformed into editable lines, polylines, fills, and text elements that you can move, delete, or modify like any other 2D drawing.
Publish organized PDF sets with Publisher
When your drawings are ready to share, Archicad’s Publisher turns your layout book into clean, consistent PDF sets. The Organizer palette helps you build and reuse publishing sets for different deliverables.
pen the Organizer via the Navigator’s context menu or Palettes > Organizer.
Switch to the Publisher Sets and Layout Book views in the Organizer.
Drag layouts or folders from the Layout Book side into a Publisher Set.
In the Publisher Set settings, choose PDF as the file format and set whether to create a single combined PDF or multiple files.
Define your destination folder and file naming options.
Click Publish to export all selected layouts at once, generating a coordinated set of PDFs ready to send to your team or clients.
To deepen your skills and explore more advanced workflows, check out the Learn Archicad! program.
