Publisher Mobile Capability

[Anonymous]

Hello

We are using Publisher to create a prototype of an interactive engineering Work Instruction to explore what can be achieved. Documentation and support for the product is sadly quite limited so we are having to learn through trial and error. I have a couple of questions to ask with regard to viewing a Publisher file on an iPad (Publisher Viewer 2015) and would be very grateful for any suggestions or advice:

1. On an iPad, are we correct in finding that any rendering styles applied during creation are ignored and a 'standard' photorealistic rendering style is applied always?
2. On an iPad, are we correct in finding that Parts Lists are not displayed?
3. Is there any way to include a hyperlink in the instruction text enabling a user to 'jump' to a reference document (perhaps a PDF) such as a Check List or Lifting Plan?
4. On an iPad, is there any way to play the animation one step at a time. It seems that the user can click the 'Next' button, in the bottom-right corner, and the sequence will step forward to the end of the next step showing how the assembly will appear after the work has been done for that step but not showing how it is done. However if the user clicks play it will show the animation of the work being carried out but keep playing through to the end of the document forcing the user to pause the sequence which will undoubtedly not be at the end of the step but some time beyond it. In the best case scenario this is just annoying and fiddly, in the worst case it could lead to errors because the user skips a step or gets confused as to where they are up to!

PLease comment if you have any thoughts.

Thank you very much.

Chris

[Huan.Yu_Autodesk · Accepted solution]

Hi Chris,

Thank you for the questions.
These are not supported in the Publisher mobile viewer as you find at this point but all of these are on our to-do list for the future releases.

Thank you for the feedback!

-Huan

[Anonymous]

Thank you Huan for your reply

Perhaps I missunderstand the product, but I thought that Publisher was designed to allow engineers to go to their point of work and follow an interactive Work Instruction. You are not going to go out in the field to maintain some equipment and take a desktop PC and with Tablet devices so ubiqutous that is probably going to be your delivery platform of choice. I cannot understand why Autodesk would go to all the trouble of developing a mobile application to open a native Publisher file on a tablet device and strip out so much functionality! Even worse the author has no idea what will make it through to the published file when they select a format.

Autodesk have a great user base with a big commitment to building assemblies using Inventor. Publisher could have a huge impact on the way engineers carry out tasks but sadly the product falls very short of what be reasonably expected of it in 'the real world'.

I am working for an international engineering company who are committed to changing the way they work and the general principle of Publisher is just what they are looking for. If you were, say, a photocopyer engineer who simply has to replace a component then perhaps this would be sufficient but if you are an engineer replacing a bearing on a steam turbine with all of the document control and safety procedures associated for such a task I'm afraid it's not mature enough yet for us.

If the developers want to discuss this with us I would be very willing to help.

Regards

Chris

[Huan.Yu_Autodesk]

Hi Chris,

I am interested in understanding your workflows and requirements more. Can you please let me know your email address via private message? I will contact you offline for discussion. Thanks!

-Huan