Print binder

The print binder turns a guide and everything inside it into one document for a truck, cab or station binder. Open it with Print binder at the top of any item's edit page. Started from a guide, it includes the guide's contents and sub-guides in their reading order, numbered 1, 1.1, 1.2, 2 and so on. Started from a single article, checklist or quiz, the binder is that item alone. Back to editor returns you to the item.

There are two ways out, and they produce different things:

• Download PDF builds the binder on ROK's servers: numbered pages, a running header, a contents page whose entries are links, and a document-control block on every section. Use it for any copy that goes into service.
• Quick print sends the on-screen preview to your browser's print dialog. It is instant, but has none of the above.

Who can use it

Without either permission, Download PDF shows "Requires content.edit or content.publish" in red under the toolbar.

The toolbar

• Binder options opens and closes the options panel.
• Saved binders… appears once a configuration has been saved for this item. Choose one to load its settings.
• Quick print opens the browser's print dialog.
• Download PDF builds the PDF (the button reads Building PDF… meanwhile) and saves it to your computer, named after the item's title. If it fails, the reason appears under the toolbar.

Binder options

Contents

Sections

Sections lists everything inside the guide, sub-guide items indented, each with its type, and counts how many are ticked. Untick a section to leave it out; Select all and Select none change them all at once. Unpublished items are listed too, but appear in the binder only when Include unpublished items is ticked.

With every section ticked, the binder means "the whole guide", so items added to the guide later are included automatically, including in a saved configuration. The PDF never comes out empty: if every section is unticked, it prints the whole guide.

A single item with nothing inside it shows "This item has no child sections — the binder is the item itself."

Save this configuration

Type a name, for example "Engine 4 quarterly", and select Save. The configuration stores every option above, including the section choice, against this item, and your colleagues see it under Saved binders… and in the list beneath. Select a name in the list to load it, or the bin to delete it. Saving under a name already used for this item replaces it.

A configuration stores settings, not content. Each download prints the items as they are on that day, so the next quarter's rebuild picks up every change made since.

The preview

Under the toolbar is a preview of what the binder will contain:

• Cover: your agency's logo (or its name), the title, the subtitle, the item's summary, then the agency name, the date generated, the version, the document number and the last review date, with the line "Printed copies are uncontrolled — the mobile app is the source of truth."
• Contents, when switched on: each section's number, title and type.
• Sections: each with its number and title, then its type, version, last review date and, if it is not published, its status. A guide you started from shows its introduction before the first section.

The preview shows the selection, not the PDF's pages. Page size, page numbers, the running header and the document-control block appear only in the PDF.

What the PDF contains

• Cover: logo, title, subtitle and summary, the agency name with the date generated and the document number, and a line saying printed copies are uncontrolled and the ROK app is the source of truth.
• Contents, if switched on, with page numbers and links.
• Every section on a new page, headed with its number and title, its type and version, and its status if it is not published.
• A running header on every section page, naming the binder and the current section, and a footer on every page after the cover, with the agency name and document number on the left and "Page 3 of 48" on the right.

The document-control block

Printed at the top of each section when switched on:

Approvals given on an earlier version are left out, because they are not evidence about the text being printed. See how two-person sign-off works.

How content is laid out

• Headings, paragraphs, lists, quotes, callouts and code print much as they appear in the app. Numbered lists keep their start number and nesting style (1. → a. → i.), and list items keep their images, quotes and code.
• Tables print as a grid: the header row is shaded and repeated after a page break, merged cells stay merged, and text wraps inside each cell. Only a table too wide for the page falls back to one line per row, with the cells separated by a vertical bar.
• Links to websites print with the web address in brackets after the text. A link to another section of the same binder prints its section number, such as "(see 2.3)".
• PNG and JPEG images are embedded with their captions, up to 120 images per binder. Images uploaded now are always saved as PNG or JPEG. Older WebP or GIF images print a note asking you to re-upload them, and images past the 120th print as their caption or alt text instead.
• Checklists print as tick boxes. Quizzes print their pass mark, questions and options.
• Video and audio items print a note with the running time and the web link, or a line saying the media is available in the ROK app.
• Attached PDFs are listed by name under Attached documents. They are not bound into the PDF; print them separately if the binder needs them.
• Curly quotes, dashes and bullets are converted to plain equivalents, and any other character outside the Western European alphabet (arrows, most mathematical symbols, emoji) prints as a question mark.

The PDF uses the text as it is saved. Changes still unsaved in an open editor are not included. For a published section it prints the released copy, the words on operators' devices, so changes still awaiting release are left out, and its version and approvals are those of the released version. The on-screen preview and Quick print show the saved working copy instead, including any changes not yet released.

Quick print

Quick print opens your browser's print dialog for the preview, with the toolbar and options hidden. Each section starts on a new page, but there are no page numbers, no running header, no document-control block and no links, and page breaks fall wherever your browser puts them. It suits a quick reference copy. For anything that goes into a vehicle, use Download PDF.