Export & Compile

Four different things make a PDF here, and they are not interchangeable. Two of them produce the record; two of them produce a convenience copy. Knowing which is which is the whole of this page.

The record

The five compiled outputs

Setting an issuance in stone compiles the record itself. You do not assemble these — they are produced from what the issuance resolved, which is why they can be trusted as the answer to “what is current”.

Field Set — every current sheet of one drawing package, in order. The set the contractor builds from.

Combined Set — the same, across every drawing package at once, for projects that carry more than one.

Revision Record Set — the superseded sheets alongside what replaced them. The argument, not just the answer.

Sheet Index — the list: number, title, discipline, current revision, and the issuance it came from.

Revision Log — the chronology, issuance by issuance.

Specifications compile the same way, as Field Specs, Revision Record Specs and Specifications Index. All of them live under Files › Outputs, each with its page count, its download, and the issuance that produced it.

These are the ones to send

A compiled output carries the record behind it. Anything you assemble by hand does not.

Assembling

The compiler

Files › Compiler merges PDFs into one document: project files, files from the firm Hub, or something you upload on the spot. Drag to reorder, and bookmarks can be generated from the file names so the merged document has a usable outline.

A compile session is a draft until you do something with it. From the results screen you can download it, share it by link, or hand it straight into an issuance — the Issue it button carries the compiled file into the LODE Issuance screen, already staged as a drawing set in a block, so the thing you just assembled becomes part of the record rather than a file beside it.

The compiler does not resolve revisions

It merges what you give it, in the order you give it. Superseding, current-set resolution and the revision record are the issuing flow’s job — see module 02.

A subset

Exporting a selection of sheets

Sometimes you need eleven sheets, not the set — the structural package for an engineer, the enlarged plans for a coordination call. Export builds a PDF from any subset of the current set: pick sheets by discipline or by drawing package, name the export, and generate it.

A selection you use repeatedly can be saved as a preset, so the next one takes a click. Exports are convenience copies with a name you chose; they are not the record, and nothing about them supersedes anything.

No account

The browser compiler, no account

lode.build/compile merges PDFs with no sign-in. It exists because everyone occasionally needs to staple two PDFs together and should not have to open an account to do it.

Nothing you add leaves the browser. Page previews are read out of the local file, the merge is written in the tab, and the only place bytes are held is your own browser storage so a refresh does not lose the order you set. There is no upload, no session and no account — which also means there is no record: the result is a file you downloaded, and LODE has no idea it exists.

← The Workspace Help & Support →