Rebrickable Help Guide: Studio - Making Instructions

Studio - Making Instructions

For free MOCs, or older MOCs instead of having .pdf instructions they may only have a LDD, Ldraw or .io file attached. This guide will show you a simple way how to make your own instructions. This guide is also useful for MOC designers who wish to make .pdf instruction files to go with their MOC.

Assumed knowledge for this guide is as follows:

You already have BrickLink Studio installed
You already have a model file, such as from LDD or an .io file

WARNING: Studio has a habit of messing up instruction layouts, particularly if your model is very large, or if you are going back and changing the views on earlier steps. To avoid disapointment, save regularly, and even backup your file periodically. There is no autosave.

Step 1: Load in your file

When you first open Studio it will give you the option to open or import a file. If you are working from a .io file built in Studio, you can click open to open the file. If you are using a different file type, such as one made in LDD you will need to click import. The full list of extension types currently supported are .io, .mo, .ldr, .lxf, .lxfml. Navigate to your file and click open/import. This will load the model into Studio. If you already have a file open you can also use the File menu to navigate to import or open.

Step 2: Break it into steps

Now you have a model loaded, you need to open the instruction maker view. Click Instruction, then click Ok, Proceed on the pop up box. This instruction view will open to the step editor and have a list of the steps on the left, a view of the model in the middle, and a list of individual parts included in that step along the bottom. To start with you will only have one step, and will be able to see the full model in the middle.

The easiest way to break the model into steps is to work backwards. Look for a few pieces at a time that are able to be removed without issue, and put these into a step. Bit by bit you will pull apart the model until there is nothing left.

Once you have decided what parts to put into the next step you need to select them. This can be done by draging a box around them on the model window, or by clicking individual pieces while holding down ctrl. Once the pieces are selected click on Move to new: step after.

Don't worry if you miss a part. You can move any part to a step that already exists by draging it into the step on the left. If you want to get rid of a step you can click the little trash can in the corner of the step. The parts for that step will then move to an adjacent step.

When you are pulling off parts, you may come accross submodels, or groups. This is where a group of parts is linked together as it is easier to build it seperately before attaching to the main model. You can see that the parts for the lion head are in a group. Typically it is best to make a group the only part in the step. You will also need to click on the view steps button on the submodel if you want to break the submodel into multiple steps.

Clicking view steps will change the step editor view to be only for the submodel. Once you have finished breaking the submodel into steps, click return to parent. You can have submodels within submodels, but too many layers can become confusing!

If the MOC designer didn't create submodels while building the MOC, you can also make these yourself in the step editor. When multiple parts are selected, a button in the bottom right will appear that says create a submodel. Click this to group the parts. If you make multiple groups that are the same, you can link the groups so the instructions for these will only be shown once (to achieve this all identical groups will need to be in the same step). Once you have the identical groups selected click Link Submodels. If the MOC designer has made a submodel you don't think is useful, you can remove it by clicking release on the submodel. WARNING: changing submodels in the step editor will also change the groupings in the main model.

If submodels are too confusing, you don't have to use them, and most simpler builds can work just fine without them. Continue pulling parts off the model until there is only one step left.

Step 3: Page Layouts

The next step in building instructions is to do the page layouts. The main point of this process is to make sure the parts being added in each step are clearly visible, so you can see how to add them. On the top change the view from Step Editor to Page Design.

Clicking File > Page Setup will allow you to choose your paper size. Changing this later could require a lot of rework so best to get it right at the start. For those viewing instructions digitally, landscape is usually preferred over portrait.

Choose how many steps are on each page. For smaller builds, or when doing sub-models, you may be able to fit more than one step on a page. Click Change Layout and pick from one of the options. Clicking Apply will make that layout only happen once before going back to single steps per page. Clicking Apply To Followings will make the new layout apply to all future pages.

You will often find that the parts being added in the step are on the other side of the model, so you will need to rotate the view. Click anywhere on the view you want to change, the border will go blue to show it is selected, then click change step view.

This will open up the extra buttons on the right hand side of the screen. In the Model Orientation section you can rotate by 90deg increments by clicking the Rotate and Flip buttons, or enter a number for each axis if you want a specific rotation. The Model Size section also has a slider which will allow you to zoom in or out. You can also drag the model to reposition it on the page. Studio typically centres the view on the added parts for that step, but it if often nicer to not have sections of the model clipped off if you can avoid it, and Studio does not seem to consider the parts boxes when positioning the model. If the parts box is in the way you can drag it to a different corner, or even adjust the scale of the parts box (particularly useful when adding large baseplates).

For smaller submodels you can click Convert To Callout which will put the steps for the submodel inside a beige box. I typically use these for submodels with 3 or less steps. You can drag the box and the model so they don't overlap. Click the arrow and then drag each end so it is pointing to where it is on the main view. If you decide you don't want to have it as a callout you can click Convert Back To Steps.

The Insert button can add extra things such as text, flip symbol, size guide (such as for axels), colour guide (useful if the MOC contains similar colours), or a bill of materials.

Step 4: Export to .pdf

Once you have checked all the pages, you can finally export the .pdf. To do this click export on the top right, edit any of the export settings, such as save location, then click export. This process may take a while depending on the size of the model.

If the file is too large, you can use the pages section to specify a subset of pages which will allow you to have multiple smaller .pdfs instead of one large one.

Congratulations! Your .pdf instructions is now ready for publishing or using to build.

Last modified Feb. 1, 2025 by icedragonj

Resource	Value
User CPU time	194.693 msec
System CPU time	2.248 msec
Total CPU time	196.941 msec
Elapsed time	217.002 msec
Context switches	195 voluntary, 42 involuntary

HELP - Studio - Making Instructions

Studio - Making Instructions

Step 1: Load in your file

Step 2: Break it into steps

Step 3: Page Layouts

Step 4: Export to .pdf

Time

Resource usage

Browser timing

SQL queries from 1 connection

Log messages