Section 92. Creating Version Cue Alternates


#92. Creating Version Cue Alternates

If you've made dramatic changes to a version, you may want to consider saving it as a Version Cue alternate. Alternates let you explore an entirely different design direction for a project while keeping an association to the document version it was based on. This is just one of the ways you can use alternates. You can also create an alternate for different languages or regions a document may need to address. Multiple alternates can be created, all pointing back to the same version. These are referred to as alternate groups. If that's unclear, try thinking about alternates as different renditions based on the same document whereas versions are historical snapshots of changes made to a document. Alternates give you the flexibility to create different design directions or renditions and work with them in the Creative Suite applications. Note that Acrobat doesn't support alternates.

Making Alternates in Bridge

Although you're most likely to create your alternates in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign, you can also designate existing files as alternates of another file using Bridge. Switch to the Versions and Alternates view and click the Alternates View button. Then select the files you want to be alternates and drag them into the alternates column of the file that will be used as the original.


In order to create an alternate of a file that you're working on, you must first save or copy it into your Version Cue Workspace. Using Bridge, click Version Cue in the Favorites pane to navigate to the Version Cue project you saved the file in. Double-click the versioned file to open it in the CS2 application that it was created with. With the file open, you can now take the design in a completely different direction.

When you're ready to save your work as an alternate, choose File > Save As. If you're not in the Adobe dialog state, click the Use Adobe Dialog button to get there. In the Save As dialog, select the Save As Alternate option located at the bottom of the dialog (Figure 92).

Figure 92. Select the Save as Alternate option in the Adobe dialog to save an open file as an alternate.


If you'd like to keep the same file name as your original file, save the alternate to a different folder. You can save the alternate to the same folder as the original but you need to use a different name. Unlike versions in Version Cue, alternates appear as separate files in your project. This is why I suggest storing all your alternates in another folder. Also, a file can only be a part of one alternate group at a time, and alternates cannot span multiple projects.




Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos(c) 100 Essential Techniques
Adobe Creative Suite 2 How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques
ISBN: 0321356748
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 143

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