Publishing PDFs

[scom570]

I find this infuriating.  I want an option so that when I publish a job, a dialogue box opens up to ask me where I want it saved.  You can still have the default in there like you have now.  I publish and check to my desktop quite a bit.

[KevinP]

scom570, then just leave the path field empty.

[ethanbodnar]

Wait, but If you leave the field blank, as Barry mentioned, I'm pretty sure it only asks you the first time, and then it saves that has the desired path location for future times. 

[scom570]

Correct - only good for one shot.

[Matt Balaam]

I can see this being useful...in our case we have predefined locations to publish to, but a checker may want to publish to another location without officially "publishing" the plan set. There would be many other instances where it would be useful.

I think adding the option at the point of publishing would be the most effective...you can have your preferred location saved in the Publisher Settings as it is now, then when it comes time to publish you can either publish to that location or hit a drop-down menu and tell it to ask you for a location. It would save the last option you used.

[KevinP]

I've confirmed that if you leave the path empty in a publisher set, you are NOT prompted for where you want to save the .PDF.  It asks you to define the destination

[Liamwillib]

There are two issues in our office that make a static/predefined file path useless. (Maybe we are working to far in the future... 😉)

1. We have a mix of Windows and Mac, in the office. The file path to the same location on a traditional server is different depending on the operating system used, so the current workflow of a predefined file-path/location doesn't work for half the office.

2. We have also gone fully could based with all of our project files located in Sharepoint/OneDrive. Now it's not even Mac vs Windows, every single computer has a different file path to the same location so the workflow now doesn't work for anybody.

Barry Kelly's mockup sounds ideal to me as the simplest way to get around this. Current workflow for people whose IT setup allows it to be powerful is maintained, with the addition of a tickbox that would overwrite the standard location and prompt every time for companies where this isn't useful. (Or now also noticed Matt Balaam's suggestion which works too)

There is a third option that would need a big change in strategy from Graphisoft on how their BIMclous SaaS works. The predefined location to save files could be pointed to a BIMcloud location, which is currently possible. However we can't send a link to this location to external parties for them to download drawings unless we buy additional BIMcloud licences and get them set up; expensive and time consuming. We could manually download published files from BIMcloud to upload to Sharepoint/OneDrive and share that way, however that would be as time consuming and convoluted as it sounds!! Being able to send secure links for external parties to download drawings directly from BIMcloud after publishing and without purchasing dozens of additional BIMcloud licences would be the ideal scenario for us.

[Raoul]

I agree. An option to be asked where to publish is very useful.

My experience with the actual work flow is that a few times I forgot to change the path and the new version of the saved file replaced a previous version of the file that was presented and sent to the client. The previous version could only be recovered from my email to the client. In certain conditions it could be lost and maybe it shouldn't.

Therefore, I completely agree, it would be much appreciated to have this option!

[KevinP]

I agree with Raoul's comment.  Overwriting a previously published file is a problem.  It would be nice if the user were prompted before overwriting files.

Though, I don't want to lose the flexibility and automated nature of the current Publisher flow.  The ability to publish layouts in the current Transmittal Set is essential. 

We're also using a cloud service. Because of the way it's installed, the path to a particular folder on the Cloud is different for each user.  But, we haven't seen that as an issue because we need to change the name/path every time that we publish.  Here's our flow:

1. Create Layouts in the Layout Book

2. Create a transmittal set and add layouts to the transmittal set.  This is especially helpful when tracking delta revisions after issuing the set for review.  This is now a must in our workflow.

3.  Do our work.

When we're ready to publish, this is the flow:

1.  Create the destination folder (Date-Description) in the project folder

2.  Copy the name of the destination folder.

3.  Edit the PDF publisher set.  Change the name of the file to (Date-Project Number-Project Name-Description) pasting some of that info from the folder name.  The Project Number and Project Name always stay the same.  So, none of the file name is typed.

3.  Set the destination folder

4.  Open the PDF publisher set. 

5.  Publish layouts in the current transmittal set.

6.  Done

I can see accommodating people who want to select sheets, print and type file names manually.  But, please don't take away this work flow, which works well for us (larger sets).

[runxel]

The real issue here is that we can not set relative paths!

That's the only thing we need, so we can set it in our template and all is well.

I don't doubt that there are some folks who want to decide where to put it each time, but I certainly don't want that and I don't agree that this is a "super common workflow these days". The publisher is for automation. Just copy or move it afterwards, when done with publishing.

If you really have the need to save the stuff to a different location each and every time you publish you really are doing something gravely wrong. /2c

[KevinP]

re: "The publisher is for automation. Just copy or move it afterwards, when done with publishing."

We don't use Publisher that way and I doubt that many do. 

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re: "I don't doubt that there are some folks who want to decide where to put it each time..."

Whether you "want to" or not, we do publish to a different folder each time.  That folder name has the date and description as described in our workflow above.

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Relative paths would work well if you're using solo projects on a local drive.  Relative paths don't work when your project is on a BIMServer.