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]

re: "push the first place drawing's name to the layout. Reason being I want to keep drawing names linked to view names, which in many cases are themselves derived from viewpoint names"

I agree. I'd rather link the drawing name to the view name. The problem comes from that drawing not always being the first to be placed on the layout. And, there's the use case of autotext for details and various other drawings. Here's a suggested UI implementation:

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Right-click on a drawing.  In the flyout under "Autotext" choose an autotext reference to be copied to clipboard. Then, that autotext can be pasted into keynotes or legends which stay current with the drawing ID and layout ID (A5/A201).

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Adding "autotext" to context menus of drawings, views, layouts, to copy autotext tags would be phenomenal.

I don't see an elevation or interior elevation drawing name being pushed to a layout name. But, who knows.

[Erik Bjornhage]

@KevinP 

When in a linked folder in a Publisher Set:

• Right-click on any layout, select Rename Items
  • Does this not work for you?

...also, when Right-clicking the Highest level there is also the option of [Rename Folders]

[SeaGeoff]

Rename Folders does not offer the Insert Autotext option, only Rename Items does, at least for me. I reported in the beta test when this was first introduced (AC18 maybe?).

In our workflow we always combine published PDFs into one file. We want to keep the internal naming of layouts and subsets as per the navigator. But we would love to automate the name of the top level folder, which becomes the name of the published PDF. Something like <yymmdd> <projectname> <transmittalsetname>.

Did someone say auotext everywhere? 😎

[thesleepofreason]

Automatic Name and ID for Folder Items made it through the wish spring clean so lets hope that it can be fast tracked. It is data management 101 and the ground work is already done - easy pickings!

[runxel]

Geoff, I have good news 😉 All Autotext works already. You just need to type it in manually (or just copy & paste it from the big list).

Works both in layouts and (!) folders! – but again: only when linked.

I agree that this is just not very discoverable tho. So yeah, Autotext ftw!

[Erik Bjornhage]

Yep, just confirmed that RenameFolders does support Autotext - if entered manually.

You can rename the top level (the finished merged file) - as well as individual folders underneath (and layouts of course)

[Ahmed_K]

you can insert all autotext from " rename elements " menu, then copy all the text , and insert it in the rename folder menu.

[SeaGeoff]

Thank for the great tip. I will definitely give it a try. 🙏

Looks like a tiny bit of UI work by Graphisoft could make this easy an accessible to all.

[KevinP]

It's good to know that you can insert Autotext tags when you Rename Items.  However....

I want Autotext in other locations.  I'd never rename folders or items in the publisher set.

I've noticed that it's common in the Archicad community to clone (shortcut) individual folders from the Layout Book to the Publisher set.  Instead, I clone (shortcut) then entire layout book.  My goal in doing this is to ensure that the PDF publisher set is always in sync with the entire layout book.  We often start with a Schematic Design folder at the top of the layout book. But, we archive that (move it to a folder named Archive) as we move on to Design Development.  If we were to clone individual folders, then the Schematic Design folder would remain prominent in the Publisher set through the end of CDs.  When I archive the Schematic Design folder in the Layout Book, I want it to also archive in the Publisher set.

With respect to Autotext in the Publisher Set: I think that when to clone (shortcut) folders from the Layout Book to the Publisher set, the Autotext tags are automatically populated in fonder and item names.  We shouldn't go renaming Publisher items to add Autotext tags even if it works.  Two cents.

[Erik Bjornhage]

There are of course different approaches on how to handle the Publisher.

For us - we would never clone the entire LayoutBook - simply because of our working process.

We have one folder for all our layouts, as the project continues new layouts may be added into that folder depending on the project need and the project stage.

This means that we only have to set up view once, we only have to link views once. When we do our Drawing Register we can do that automatically and all our revisions and transmittals are easily managed.

In Sweden we also have a standardised numbering system for drawings which means that all our drawings (PDF) are named with a number only (LayoutID), no text on what information it contains. This also means that we can hotlink our drawing register with our drawings based on numbering alone. However, in our LayoutBook there is a text descibing the information (LayoutName) - and as such we rename all our items in the Publisher to only export with LayoutID.

A second reason to not have a huge number of layouts is speed and efficiency - Archicad gets pretty bogged down when you have an excessive number of Layouts...so from a management standpoint it is nice to have a simple, streamlined process.

But as I said, there are many ways of handling things and if you don't need to rename items in the Publisher then don't - if your process works for you that's great.

/ E.