Skip to main content
K
klevy6-Contributor
6-Contributor
August 26, 2026
Question

PDF Drawings: Representations vs Documents

  • August 26, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 15 views

I’m wondering others' opinions on whether using OOTB representations has pros/cons vs generating a document (with the PDF as primary content). A few advantages of documents: They can be included as PDF in packages. They are directly clickable on search. Drawings can come from other systems (harness prints from Zuken). Easier for users and external systems to find. I don’t love that there are 2 copies of drawings (maybe the rep PDF should be turned off). What are other companies doing?

1 reply

B
BryanK17-Peridot
17-Peridot
August 26, 2026

It all depends on your business rules and the WGMs that you have. If it's something like Zuken and you dont have the WGM then you could zip the design file and use the PDF as the representation. For documents, it seems like having the primary document as a pdf is counter productive. Lifecycle states and access permissions could resolve this issue. eg  In work users can make changes to the wtdoc then when released only the visualization (PDF) can be downloaded. We have implemented different senarios all of them different. when it comes to packages you elect to only include representations (pdf’s) 

Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement