Inventor publishing guidelies

When you register as a publisher, you'll see the complete requirements in the Publisher Agreement. This guide summarizes the key points — the agreement takes precedence if anything differs.

When you submit your app, the form collects everything needed for your listing — including content for the quick-start page that's included with downloads and viewable online.

Compatibility

Your product must be relevant to (and usable with) Autodesk® Inventor® 2027 and must run on any Windows operating system supported by Inventor 2027. You can also indicate the compatibility with Inventor® 2026| 2025| 2024| 2023 | 2022.

User privileges

The default user privilege for the Store apps is Windows 10/11 Admin User. The installer should have elevated user privileges.

Product stability

The new registry-free add-in mechanism greatly simplifies the automatic installation steps. Your product should be stable and not behave or alter the behavior of Inventor in a way that we deem unsuitable, for example, blocking standard functionality, blocking the functionality of another add-in, causing data loss, etc.

HTML help page

When you submit your app, the documentation form generates a help page that's included with your download. Make sure your instructions are clear and actionable — users should be able to get started quickly. You can link to additional resources hosted on your website.

Ready to run

Your app must work immediately after installation — no manual file copying, registration, or settings changes required.

If your app uses licensing:

• Activate automatically (e.g., online activation), or
• Include a fully functional trial period long enough to deliver activation to the customer.

There are no additional requirements for products that are not integrated with Inventor. Such products might include eBooks, video tutorials, industry- specific calculators, connectors to Cloud based services, and the like.

Additional requirements

• After Inventor 2024, registry-based add-ins/projects are not supported in any programming languages (like C++, C#, VB,net, F# etc.,)
• Use the registry-free add-in mechanism. We use a standard bundle installer template to deploy content downloaded from the store.
• We can help you migrate your app to use this mechanism: Your add-in should add relevant UI elements to the Inventor ribbon bar where applicable. Translator add-ins should use the standard translator add-in mechanism for Inventor.

Additional requirements

Libraries (in ipt/iam file format) must be installed in a subfolder of the following folder:   

Windows 10/11:%PUBLIC%\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor (typically C:\Users\Public\Documents\Autodesk\Inventor)

Again, we'll create the MSI installer for you and we can help you modify your libraries so they work in this new location. You just need to provide the content.

Your library must add relevant UI elements for your add-in to the Inventor ribbon bar. The ribbon bar UI must either provide access to the library components, or launch a help file explaining how to access it.

Use the ribbon bar

Adding ribbon bar elements for your application is recommended when relevant, but how would you do this will depend on your add-in design:

• As a minimum, your add-in or content library can add a panel to the Add-Ins tab that either invokes the main command defined by the add-in or displays a help file explaining how to use the library.

• Add-ins that install a single panel should normally add that panel to the Add-Ins tab.

• Add-ins that create several ribbon bar panels may prefer to create a new tab-specific to that add-in (and normally with the tab name being the name of the add-in).

• You can add any other UI elements via your add-in (for example, menubars and toolbars) as well, but you should still include a basic ribbon bar UI where applicable.

Use delay loading

Unless your add-In absolutely has to load as soon as Inventor launches, you should design it to load only when it’s needed. This is to minimize the impact of installed add-ins on Inventor start up performance. The .addin mechanism makes it very easy to set up demand load settings for your add-in.

Use the registry-free mechanism

We strongly encourage you to make use of the registry-free mechanism to deploy your add-in.

You can also download some of the free add-ins already available on the Marketplace for Inventor and study their format.

Questions? Email appsubmissions@autodesk.com for support.

For more resources, visit the API documentation and the Developer Community Blog.