Adding PDF's to Vault!

I was cleaning up a project that I have been using when I noticed that users do have the ability to add PDF's to their Vault of their choice. In my previous post about Adding Microsoft Documents to Vault, the users needed to open up a Microsoft product then login to the Vault which would allow you to add the file in progress to your Vault. Of course after adding a few files from all the Microsoft family, I quickly realized that a good portion of firms use PDF's. So naturally I opened up Adobe to find that there wasn't any toolbars or menus which would allow such a thing. So I gave up on it figuring that Autodesk would maybe include it in their next release. This isn't some little trick that I discovered but an item that is not well documented.

Instead of using Adobe to add documents to the Vault, the steps outlined below will help you add project data that wasn't created using Microsoft Office.
First, start by opening up Vault Explorer and selecting your Vault that you would like to add the file to. Then select the File menu and select Add files. Once the dialog box opens by default it is set to All Files, but if you select the pull down arrow you should notice that it allows for PDF's. Browse for your PDF that you would like to have added to your project. Then once you select Open you will be given a dialog box that will allow you to Delete Local Copy. Depending on if you want to keep the folder structure or not depends on if you check this. Checking it will delete the original file and then copy it to the Working Folder. This allows Vault to control where the files are. After the file has been added to the Vault you will see it show up in the project list under the file name as shown below. Additionally by right-clicking on the file once it has been added to the Vault you will be given the same options as other file types in the Vault.


The only concerning thing that I have noticed about this is that Vault does NOT put a lock or make the file Read-Only. I do understand that a PDF is a "read-only" document but I would've expected to see a read-only message. Since you are not given read-only message you could double-click on the file in the Working Folder without the Vault checking out the file. Not that I would recommend that since the whole purpose of Vault is to manage the data. In addition this is the same for .txt files that can be added to the Vault.

In summary this is a great option for those of us are finally adopting Civil 3D as our primary design software. We are finally to the point where we have an intergrated system that can create data and manage it. Now all we have to do is make sure the users use it the right way.