Your assembly is finished. Production is waiting. And then the work begins that really should not be work at all: creating a PDF for each drawing, pulling DXFs out for the laser-cut parts, a STEP for the supplier, and a DWG on top of that for that one old CAM machine. File by file. Folder by folder. Checkbox by checkbox. Batch exporting in Inventor is, for many engineers, still an hour of fiddling with the Print and Export dialogs, even though it is the least creative task of your entire day.
In this article we first walk through why that manual exporting costs so much time and causes so many errors. Then we show how you get the same result in 1 click with Batch Publish, which pitfalls it helps you avoid, and what it concretely delivers for your production preparation.
Why manual exporting eats up so much time
The problem is not that a single export takes long. Creating one PDF is done in no time. The problem is that you do it twelve times, in four formats, for an assembly with thirty parts. The pain is in the repetition, not in the single action. Run the numbers for an ordinary Tuesday.
Say you have a machine frame with 25 drawings. For each drawing you want a PDF for the job folder, a DWG for an external party and, for the sheet metal parts, a DXF as well. The models themselves need to go to the supplier as STEP. Per drawing you are then busy like this:
- Open the drawing.
- Open the Print or Export dialog.
- Choose the right format (PDF).
- Point to the target folder.
- Check or adjust the file name.
- Review pen and line settings or color-to-black.
- Export and wait.
- Export again, now to DWG.
- Choose the DWG version and layer mapping.
- Select the sheet metal part and start the DXF export.
- Open the model for the STEP export.
- Choose the STEP version, save, close the drawing.
Twelve steps. Per drawing. For 25 drawings you are talking about hundreds of separate actions, and that is before you have even checked whether everything ended up in the right folder. This is exactly where the principle "1 click instead of 12 steps" comes from: not as a slogan, but because it is literally the number of actions you currently perform per drawing.
The hidden costs: errors and context switching
Time is only half the story. The other half is concentration. Every time you fill in a dialog, you can pick the wrong folder, forget a DWG version, skip a revision or use the wrong paper size. With a hundred manual exports, the question is not whether an error creeps in, but which one and when you discover it. And a wrong DXF that ends up at the laser cutter does not cost seconds but half a sheet, plus the time to track down the error and reschedule the order.
On top of that comes the switching. You constantly jump between drawing, model, File Explorer and dialog boxes. That chops your workday into pieces and pulls you out of your flow again and again. Just as you settle into the design, you have to leave it to write out a set, and then go back again. The annoying part is that this work is entirely predictable. Every step is the same, every time. And anything that is so predictable and repeatable should not be done by hand.
There is another creeping effect: because exporting is tedious, people put it off or do it selectively. "I only publish the drawings I think have changed." That sounds efficient, but this is exactly how the gaps appear. One drawing has been updated on the server, the other has not, and production works with an old revision without anyone noticing. A process that is so laborious that you would rather skip it is a process that invites errors.
Batch exporting in Inventor with Batch Publish
Batch Publish is Thundercad's export tool for exactly this problem. You select the documents you want to output, choose which formats, and the tool writes them out in 1 step: PDF, DWG, DXF and STEP at the same time. No separate dialogs per file, no manually pointing to folders, no forgotten formats. The repetitive work shifts from your hands to the tool.
The difference is in the scale. Where you manually perform twelve steps per drawing, you now run an entire set in one go. The proof from practice: 48 PDFs in 6 seconds. That is not an estimate of what might be possible, that is what Batch Publish does when you publish an assembly with all its drawings at once. The time you used to spend clicking is the time you now have left over.
Important for anyone working in a PDM environment: Batch Publish works together with Autodesk Vault. So you do not have to check out files locally and gather them by hand before you can export. That removes an entire preparatory step that, with large assemblies, often takes just as much time as the exporting itself.
How it works in practice
The process is deliberately short. In broad strokes it works like this:
- Open your assembly or select the documents you want to output.
- Start Batch Publish and choose the desired formats: PDF, DWG, DXF, STEP, or a combination.
- Let the tool write the whole set out in 1 step to the right folders.
That is it. The difference with the twelve steps above is not that they go faster, but that they disappear. You choose once what you want, and the tool takes over the repetition. For a set of thirty drawings or for a set of three it is the same action: start and done.
Stop clicking through export dialogs and write out your entire drawing set in 1 go. Experience for yourself how much calmer your production preparation becomes.
Try 30 days for freePitfalls when batch exporting in Inventor (and how to avoid them)
An export tool takes the manual labor away, but it is still engineering. A batch is, after all, merciless: it does exactly what you set, for every file, without correcting along the way. A few things make the difference between a smooth batch and a messy folder full of files that you still have to go through afterwards.
1. Make sure your model data is in order
A batch is only as good as its input. Leftover geometry, duplicate sketches or a cluttered browser simply come along in your STEP export and make your files unnecessarily large or messy. With a hundred models you do not notice it file by file, you only notice it when the supplier calls. So run through your models with Model Cleaner before you export a large set. Then you know for sure that what your supplier receives is clean, and not full of remnants from earlier design choices or construction reference lines.
2. Keep your iProperties consistent
File names, revisions and project codes often come straight from your iProperties. If those are filled in differently per document, you get a batch with inconsistent names, and then you are renaming by hand afterwards anyway, exactly the work you wanted to avoid. So manage your metadata centrally with the iProperty Menu, via one configurable data card per document type. Fill in your drawing number, revision and description consistently, and every batch rolls out with neat, traceable names. Good metadata up front saves you cleanup work afterwards.
3. Think about your formats per recipient
Not every party wants the same thing. The shop floor wants PDF, the laser cutter wants DXF, an external engineer wants DWG and the supplier wants STEP. The nice thing about batch exporting is that you do not have to weigh these formats against each other: you can include them in the same step. Decide in advance which formats you typically need for a standard order, lock that in as your fixed set, and then you never have to think about it again for each new assembly.
What batch exporting in Inventor concretely delivers
The immediate result is time. But the real gain is in what you do with that time and in the errors you no longer make. The table below puts the manual process next to Batch Publish.
| Aspect | Manual, per file | With Batch Publish |
|---|---|---|
| Actions per drawing | Up to 12 steps | 1 click for the whole set |
| Chance of wrong folder or format | Grows with every file | Set once, then fixed |
| Formats at the same time | One by one | PDF, DWG, DXF, STEP together |
| Vault environment | First search and check out | Works together with Vault |
| Concentration | Constant switching | Choose once, done |
| Interim revision | Selective and error-prone | Whole set again, in seconds |
Work it out for your own situation. Say you spend an hour a week on exporting, on repetitive clicking. Then over a year that is well over a full working week you get back for the work you were actually hired to do: designing and solving problems. That is an assumption, not a measurement, but the order of magnitude is probably familiar to anyone who regularly outputs entire assemblies. And that is before we even count the errors you no longer make.
Because that is the second, less visible effect. If publishing is a matter of seconds, you do it more often and more completely. No more half sets, no more "I will only do the changed drawings". Production structurally works with the current revision, and the kind of error that arises because someone forgot to update one drawing disappears from your process on its own.
Companies like Little Giant Europe, Van Egten, Banzo and Mannen van Staal work with Thundercad to take exactly this kind of repetitive work out of their engineering process, so that their engineers spend their time on engineering instead of on export dialogs.
Frequently asked questions
Which formats can I export at once with Batch Publish?
Batch Publish writes out your production documents in 1 step as PDF, DWG, DXF and STEP. You can combine these formats, so that every recipient, from the shop floor to the supplier, gets the right file in the same work round.
Does batch exporting also work together with Autodesk Vault?
Yes. Batch Publish works together with Autodesk Vault, so you do not first have to check out files manually and gather them before you can export an entire set. That saves a complete preparatory step with large assemblies.
What do I need to use Thundercad?
You need Windows 10 or 11, Autodesk Inventor 2025 or newer and an active Autodesk account. You can try Thundercad free for 30 days, no credit card required. After that it costs 30 euros per user per month or 300 euros per user per year (2 months free), excluding VAT. You can read more in the knowledge base.