PDF Publishing

‘Nuff said.

*and there was much rejoicing*

Well, maybe I could add a little more detail. It has long been known that the PDF is the currency of visual data exchange. All too often, I work with users and organizations that have to print PDFs outside of Vault, creating an uncontrolled document. If you were using the item master (discussed by my colleague here), you could attach it to the item; however, keeping it up to date is still going to be a manual process.

Now, thanks to the #1 most requested feature being implemented, that will no longer be an issue. Vault will now publish PDFs as part of your release process (as part of a transition action in a lifecycle change). This file will be categorized differently than the native CAD file, or even the DWF visualization file. The new category is called “Design Representation,” which can then be assigned its own set of rules, properties, and lifecycles.

As of this release, we have the ability to publish 2D file formats: DWG and IDW; that means either AutoCAD based files or Inventor drawings can be published to PDF. At some point, Autodesk may need to add the 3D PDF generation that was added to Inventor recently – which, by the by, could be used to publish all of the new Model Based Definition (MBD) annotations Inventor 2018 has added. I suspect we could see 3D publishing in the next release, or even a mid-year “R2” release (if there is an “R2;” who knows at this point).

Questions, comments, and celebrations welcome.