Idea Delivered Partially

(There is a customizable way to do this -- see comment below. JP)

SDL Collective Spaces - Add "Download PDF" (Output) Option

Hello,

It would be nice if SDL Draft Space or Review Space included an option the web-interface for the user to download a rendered PDF of the given publication. I understand an advanced user could navigate to the publication in the SDL web client, select the publciation, and choose to generate the desired output then download it. However for the novice Reviewer or SME having some kind of "Download PDF" option that would email them or generate a copy of the given publication (with styling applied) quickly by click or by some kind of drop-down menu would be ideal.

Thanks,

Ryan

Ryan Shubert
  • in reply to Ryan Shubert

    Hi Ryan, we looked at this some time ago and found that there would be many possible options and questions for this depending on the organization. Some groups would want a Track Changes PDF, with the associated selectors for different publication versions; others don't have a stylesheet for one of those because they don't need it. Some would want this "preview" to be some kind of a web output; others would never want their Subject Matter Expert users in Collective Spaces to generate a dynamic web output since it would change the in-production content. There are so many permutations.

    What we felt was most appropriate was to unblock customers and partners to completely customize the controls and outputs that users work with here. This is a very good use case for the custom side panel that we introduced in Tridion Docs 14 SP3. A developer can put together some simple publishing controls over the Tridion Docs API, to fit the organizations requirements, and display those controls in the custom side panel. There are instructions in the SP3 Bootcamp presentation here (deep link to the relevant section): https://youtu.be/2oe1MGuq6Y4?t=1001

    Best regards,

    Joe 

  • in reply to Ivo van de Lagemaat

    Hello Ivo,

    In my case the Subject Matter Experts who are authoring or revising content want to see  the layout and styling of the content. Collective Spaces effectively shows only a plain text view of the content for authoring, review, and editing. When a SME finalizes all changes they want to verify what the final PDF output will look like and in some cases take that PDF directly and publish it internally/externally.

    At the moment the only way users can generate the PDF output in collective spaces would be going into the Web Client (Content Manager) and navigating to the corresponding publication folder and walking through the process of generating output. Most of our SME's are not familiar with his process and they would prefer a simple PDF generation button along with the simple and intuitive collective spaces Editor.

    Regards,

    Ryan

  • Thank you for posting this idea.

    What is the main purpose for downloading the publication as PDF in Collective Spaces. Is it for reviewing the content (can be done in Review Space), checking the layout of the PDF or something else?

  • Give the people what they want - right when they want it, and right where they are. :-)