From the course: ArchiCAD: Management & Collaboration

Using PMK drawings - Archicad Tutorial

From the course: ArchiCAD: Management & Collaboration

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Using PMK drawings

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- On this file I have two layouts, but I don't have anything on the model, so if I go here under ground floor it's empty. I have no views, I just have two layouts with two drawings that are linked to another model file. So, if I open the model file I have here the model, the views, but I don't have any layout. Now, going back to the layout file, on this one we have only two layouts, but when you have hundreds of them, you will end up also with a heavy file that takes a long time to update all the drawings, which could be quite frustrating. So, there is another way to keep the layout file even smaller, and that's by using PMK files. So, I'm gonna go back to the model file again. Let's go to the Publisher Set where we can create our sets, and we have those two and their ArchiCAD sets here, which is one for every Layout and another for every View. I'm gonna open this View. We're gonna use this one with a View, so I'm gonna open it, and here we have, again, a list of all the Views that we have saved on the View Map. So, here with the Grove House top selected I'm gonna change the format from PDF to PMK. Now, every drawing inside this folder is now gonna be saved in PMK. But, I only need to save the ground floor and the first floor for now. So, I'm gonna go ahead and publish these selected items. ArchiCAD is going to save a PMK file for every one of those Views. Now, if we go back to the layout file, instead of linking this drawing to another model, I'm going to right-click, Link Drawing to, it is also an external source, but instead of a file, I will chose the PMK file, so I'm gonna open this one, and then I'm gonna do the same with the first floor. So, right-click, Link Drawing to, external source, and then the first floor PMK file. So, for the old users of 2D CAD, so it's a light file that contains all the information about that drawing. So, it's not automatic anymore if I do change this on the model file, I won't get those changes here unless I publish the PMK file again. But, this can be a very streamlined process. So, if I go back there to the model file, and if I perform any change here, all I have to do is go to the View Publisher Set, publish those drawings again. Make sure you publish on the same folder so you actually replace the original file. And then going back to the layout file, that drawing should be updated. The good thing is that PMK is smart enough to bring all the information like the revisions, and put them on the revision object in here. So, if you have a lot of layouts, this is the lightest way to consolidate them.

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