In order for your completed HPD to qualify for certain certifications, such as LEED v4 material disclosure, and be used in other standards and libraries, it must be "published," which is equivalent to making it a public document.
For most manufacturers, this is an important reason for completing an HPD, and publishing is a critical step. The HPD Public Repository is the authoritative source for published HPDs and HPDs must be published there to be considered complete and "public."
Unpublished HPDs are "draft" documents. You are able to use a draft HPD for some purposes, such as working within your own organization, with consultants, suppliers and other collaborators. This may be very valuable and useful while you are developing the data in your HPD, which may require considerable work with others to fully complete.
If you are using the HPD Builder to create your HPD, you will be able to publish to the Repository directly from the HPD Builder. After the HPD is published, you will be able to download the PDF directly from your HPD Builder account—for printing, internal or external use, or to place it on your own website.