stylehub.cloud

The manual as a PDF

On this page

Every manual can be downloaded as a PDF. The document looks like the published page, on A4 paper, with the manual's own template, colors and fonts.

Downloading a PDF

WhereDashboard, Brand manual

  1. Open the manual you want. If the brand has several, the title at the top is a dropdown.
  2. Press Download PDF, in the row of buttons beside Preview.
  3. The file arrives when it is finished. A long manual with many pictures takes a few seconds.

The permission is View the brand manual, which every built in role holds, viewers included. See Roles.

The dashboard download works before you publish

It works whether the manual is published or not, so you can read a PDF of something nobody outside the team can see yet. The button a reader sees, and the API, give the published manual only.

The button a reader sees

A public or unlisted manual offers Download PDF in its own top bar, so a reader with no account can take the document away. The button is not shown on a private or password protected manual. See Who may see a manual and What a reader can do on a published page.

How many PDFs can be made a minute depends on the plan of the brand, not on who is reading. A reader past it sees Too many PDF renders and can try again a minute later. The numbers are in the API documentation (opens in a new tab).

What is in the document

  • The published sections, in order, with the manual's template, accent color, density, color mode, heading and body fonts, and its table of contents and section numbers if they are switched on. See Design controls.
  • The brand's uploaded fonts, so a manual with its own typeface prints in it. See Typography.
  • The footer note and website link, and the Made with Stylehub credit unless your plan removes it and the manual is set to hide it.
  • When review before publishing is on, the version that was last published, not the working draft.

Left out: the reading progress bar, the back to top button, the Search and Sections buttons, the copy link control on each section, the Download PDF button itself, and the banner shown to a signed in team member on a private manual. Unpublished sections are not in it, and neither are pictures whose file has been deleted, which are blank on the page too. See Where a file is used.

There is no separate PDF design to keep in step. Change the template, the accent color, the density, the fonts or a single block, and the next PDF has the change.

The printed page

Page size
A4.
Margins
16mm at the top and bottom, 14mm at the left and right.
Backgrounds
Printed. Colored panels, hero images and tinted blocks come out as they look on screen rather than as white boxes.
Page breaks
Sections avoid breaking across a page, and a heading is not left at the foot of one.
Links
An external link prints its address after the text, so a reader on paper can still follow it.
File name
The manual's slug, so a manual at acme downloads as acme.pdf. The document title is the manual's SEO title if it has one, otherwise its title.

Asking for one from the API

The same document can be fetched by a script or a build. A public or unlisted manual needs nothing; a private or password protected one needs an API token of its brand, made on the API page (opens in a new tab). The address, the headers, the limit and working code in five languages are in the API documentation (opens in a new tab).

If the download fails

The PDF could not be rendered. Try again in a moment.
The document did not finish in time, usually because many were being made at once. A second attempt usually works.
Too many PDF renders
The brand's limit for the minute is used up. Wait a minute and try again. The dashboard download has no such limit.

If the document does not look right

A picture is missing
Either its file was deleted, in which case it is blank on the page too, or the picture did not load in time. Check the public page first: the PDF only ever shows what the page shows.
The wrong typeface
A brand font that is a large file, or a Google font that was slow, can fall back. Try again, and see Typography for which faces are loaded.
A section is not in it
It is unpublished, or the manual is reviewed before publishing and the section is not in the published version yet. See Review before publishing.
The Made with Stylehub credit is still there
Removing it is part of the paid plans, and the checkbox Show "Powered by Stylehub" in the footer also has to be cleared on the manual. See Plans and limits.

Printing it yourself

Pressing print in your own browser on the public page gives the same result, except for the paper size, which is then whatever you chose.

Where to go next

PreviousDesign tokens, in thirteen formatsNextWhat each plan includes

Still stuck? Write to hello@stylehub.cloud and say which page you were on.

The manual as a PDF - Stylehub