One of the most important aspects of building a guide is testing it on your own device. With our guide preview feature, you can download a snapshot of your guide to review the layout or design of your guide and guide content. This will help you fine-tune things so that you can make sure that your people have the best possible experience when they use your guide.
There are a few things to keep in mind when using guide previews.
- If you are using a private guide that is passphrase-protected, the preview code is not the same as your published guide’s passphrase.
- Previews are limited in functionality. Any part of the guide that requires an internet connection, such as Interact, Photo Albums, notifications, contact emails, etc., will not function when using a guide preview.
- Guide previews do not update automatically. The guide preview is a static snapshot of your guide at the time it is generated and does not update in real time. In order to see any changes made to your guide since the preview was generated, you’ll need to delete the current preview from your device and generate a new one.
- Guide previews are throttled. You’re only able to download one preview per-guide per-minute.
Generating a Guide Preview
Click the Preview on your device button in the lower-left corner of the guide-building view.
Builder will start generating your guide preview, which usually takes less than a minute to complete. When it’s ready, Builder will give you the guide’s preview code as well as the preview QR code.
Downloading a Guide Preview
To access a preview on your device:
- Open the Guidebook app
- Navigate to the Find Guides tab
- Tap Enter passphrase or the Scan QR code button
- Enter your preview code, or scan the QR code displayed on the Builder website
- Tap Download and open your guide preview
If you have signed in with your Guidebook account that you are using in Builder to create your guide and you have enabled notifications for the Guidebook app, you will receive a notification each time you generate a new preview. When you tap on the notification, your updated preview will automatically download.
Deleting a Guide Preview
In order to see any changes made to your guide since the preview was generated, you’ll need to delete the current preview from your device and generate a new one. You can delete a preview by returning to the My Guides section of the Guidebook app. Tap and hold (long press) the card that represents your guide preview and a prompt will display, asking if you’d like to remove the guide. Select Yes, remove to delete the preview from your device.
