Your PDF has the instructions. Ravelry has the gauge, the yardage, the hook sizes, the suggested yarns and the thousands of projects other people made from it. Linking gets you both.
Doing it
Open the pattern and choose Link to Ravelry. Search for it — the pattern’s name is usually enough — and tap Link to This Pattern on the right result.
If the import already offered you a match and you skipped it, this is where you go to change your mind.
What you get
The Ravelry details attach to your pattern: craft, yarn weight, gauge, yardage, needle and hook sizes, the description, the designer, the suggested yarns. Your PDF stays exactly as it is — the file isn’t touched, moved or replaced.
The pattern then shows both the Ravelry and PDF badges, because both are now true of it.
Adding it to your Ravelry library too
The link screen offers Add to Ravelry Library — “Also add this pattern to your library on Ravelry”. That’s a separate thing from linking: linking is local bookkeeping, while this tells Ravelry you own the pattern. Leave it off and nothing is sent to Ravelry.
It’s reversible
Linking doesn’t merge anything or throw anything away. You can unlink, and you’re back to a plain imported PDF with the details you’d typed yourself.
Signing out of Ravelry also clears the link, keeping your PDF — see What happens when I sign out?.
Linking or merging?
- Linking joins your PDF to a Ravelry pattern and keeps one entry
- Merging is for when you’ve somehow ended up with two entries for the same pattern and want one — see Merging and separating patterns