Skip to content

Publish and manage versions

Publication boundary

Publishing creates a read-only version used by printing, scanning, grading, and reports. The draft remains editable afterward. Later draft edits have no effect on those work areas until another version is published.

Open the exam Build workspace, choose Draft under Viewing, and select Publish draft.

Before publishing

A publishable draft requires a successful current compile and valid question structure. Review the final PDF, question order, point total, response-box geometry, assets, and every page break. Blocking errors must be fixed.

The publish dialog can require explicit acknowledgement for:

  • nonblocking LaTeX warnings;
  • zero-point response questions kept for compatibility;
  • a missing printed title;
  • creating a new version whose draft content matches an existing published version.

Enter an optional version Label, such as Instructor-approved copy or Makeup revision, to distinguish it. Publishing fixes the questions, multipart structure, points, response workspaces, assets, and auto-graded choices for that version. Set auto-graded answer keys later in Grade.

Published PDFs

After publishing, Gradebird prepares:

  • a nonstudent final preview PDF;
  • one master-packet PDF used by the master printing workflow.

If either PDF fails, retry it without republishing. Named and numbered packet batches are generated separately in Print.

View and restore a version

Use the Viewing selector in Build to open a published version. Its setup, assets, and questions are read-only. Restore v… to draft overwrites the current draft with a copy of that version after confirmation. The published version remains unchanged, and restoration does not publish or change the administration version.

Canonical administration version

After the first publish, one version is canonical. On Print, Scan, Grade, and Reports, the selector is labeled Administration version. Changing it submits an explicit update and makes ordinary exam-workflow links resolve to that version.

Gradebird warns when the canonical version is not the latest or when other versions have print/grading history. An acknowledgement can keep the selected older canonical version and hide its recurring warnings. Existing batches, scans, grades, and reports remain pinned to the version that created them.

Do not change the administration version merely to inspect historical downstream data. Use read-only Build version viewing for content comparison, and treat a canonical change as a real administration decision.

Continue with Print exam packets.

Published exam version

This read-only builder view displays the setup, assets, and questions frozen into one published version. Instructors can compare it with the draft or explicitly restore it into the draft. Viewing it does not change the administration version or published artifacts.

Published exam preview

This detached preview displays the final PDF for one immutable published version. It is read-only and version-specific; administration, scans, grades, and reports remain pinned according to their own selected version.