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Archi Docuflow User Guide

User Guide

Docuflow PDF for Revit

User Guide

Copyright Archigrafix. All Rights Reserved.

Installation/Uninstallation

Install instructions

  1. Run the supplied installer
  2. Introduce the serial number in case you have a license or leave empty for floating licenses or trial
  3. Confirm the installation settings
  4. The plugin is now available to run inside Revit.

Uninstall instructions

  1. Close all Revit sessions.
  2. Run the uninstaller from the installation directory or from the shortcut in the windows program menu.
  3. Confirm the uninstallation
  4. The program is then uninstalled.

Requirements

Docuflow has the following requirements in order to print PDFs in the right paper size:

Always use the latest version of Docuflow from our download page .

The user must have administration permissions to the Bullzip printer and PDF24. This is enabled in the Devices and Printers, Bullzip PDF Printer Properties, Security tab: enable Manage this printer and Manage documents for your user.

Docuflow overview

You can use Docuflow to export the most used building documentation files from your sheets, your drawing list and an IFC model. Docuflow will then export all the files in one operation.

It is possible to use different workflows to publish sheets:

  1. One can use pre-saved sheet sets, for project stages that require a selection of sheets to be published multiple times.
  2. Publishing using a selection of sheets, is more adequate for more dynamic project stages requiring to publish different collection of sheets. This can during a construction phase, involving a specific drawing revision. The different selection strategies are described further down in this manual.

Start by selecting the sheets, the folder where you want to save and the filetypes.

Main tab

Selecting sheets

  • To locate the sheets for exporting to PDF and DWG, one can first sort either by sheet number or by project revision number. Making the list sorting descending by project revision number makes your latest revised drawings group on top of the list.
  • Choose sheets on the left pane and click on the right arrow to add them to the right pane.

Searching sheets

Start typing the name or number of the sheet in the search bar. The sheets will then be shown in accordance to your search.

Export PDFs as separate files

  1. Start with a selection of sheets.
  2. Select the folder to save the files and click the Create Documents button.

Export PDFs as a single document

  1. Start with a selection of sheets.
  2. Enable the merge to single file in the PDF tab.
  3. You then select the folder to save the files and click the Create Documents button.

Export DWGs

  1. To generate prints in DWGs, you always start with a selection of sheets.
  2. Select the folder to save the files and click the Create Documents button.

The settings for exporting DWGs are configured via the Revit native dialog (File->Export DWG). There one can for chose not to export the views in your sheets as separate files, should you wish to merge all the elements into a single DWG. You can save your DWG export configuration for each Revit project and selecting it in Docuflow (tab Formats).

Paper Prints

To print to small and large format printer:

  1. Start with a selection of sheets.
  2. Choose small or large paper prints, and click the publish button.

One can print to paper prints alone or simultaneously with publishing to other formats, for instance PDF or DWG.

Please select the printers youu want ot use as small and large format in the tab Printers.

Docuflow uses primarily Adobe Acrobat Reader to send the drawings in vector format to your printer. Therefore the print settings of Adobe Acrobat influence the way the prints are handled by your printer. We recomend that you use the setting "Use paper source by PDF page size". In case Adobe Reader is not installed, Docuflow will print as bitmap (lower quality) to your printer. It ir recommendable therefore that Acrobat is installed to get high quality prints.

The paper size is defined in your printer settings. Some printers handle the page size better than others. Usually large format printers will not have problems with that. Small format printers may require to be manually configured in the default settings what is the output paper by default.

Sheet Sets

A collection of sheets can be saved using sheet sets that can used later to print separate or merged documents. This is a usefull workflow when the same set of drawing needs to be published multiple times in the course of the project.

Docuflow saves the sheet order by default to allow a flexible organization of the sheets when creating a single PDF document with multiple sheets.

The other settings that can be saved in the sheet sets are:

  • Publishing folder location
  • Filename rules
  • Merge to single file rules

To enable or disable saving these settings, please adjust the selection in the Options tab.

Filename Rule

Docuflow has 2 modes to name DWG and PDF files: basic and advanced. In basic mode the filename are typically "Sheet Number.extension" and are controlled in the tabs Formats and PDF. When necessary advanced filename rules can be enabled by selecting the checkbox Advanced filenames. The rules are then set in the tab "Filename" as described under.

Advanced Filename

In advanced filename rules one can combine dynamic Revit parameters, including shared parameters, date tags and any characters supported in the windows filenames to compose a filename after your office standards. The filenames rules for PDF and DWG are set separately and are saved in the settings file of a specific project. The settings file can easily be copied into another project to enforce the same filename rules and save time.

Automation

It is possible to run any comand prompt command before or after the publish process. This enables automation processes, such as creating a ZIP file of the publish documents, upload to an FTP location, copy the published files to an archive, trigger an e-mail, etc. For complex tasks we recomend using batch files or powershell scripts.

Auto save settings:

The schedule settings, including page format, font, language, are automatically saved after an export or preview. This enables the user to quickly generate a new report with the previously saved settings.