WORKING WITH VERSION CUE

If you read the other sections of this book, you know that all the Creative Suite programs use Version Cue to help track changes, manage projects, and browse file thumbnails and information. You explored Version Cue further in other sections of the book; this section introduces the basics of using it with Illustrator.

If you're ready to create a file in Illustrator that you want to save as a Version Cue project, select File, Open. Make sure you use the Adobe version of the Open dialog (see Figure 22.11).

Figure 22.11. The Adobe Open dialog enables you to create and save documents as Version Cue projects.

In the left panel, click Version Cue. From the Project Tools menu, select New Project. Choose where you want to save the project in the Location pop-up menu. Enter a project name and a project description.

If you want this project to be available to others, enable the Share This Project with Others check box. Click OK.

If a project is shared, two users can work on it at the same time. Version Cue does not allow one user's editing to overwrite the other's. After users save their document to the Version Cue workspace, they are alerted to another version and given the opportunity to either download the new changes or continue. You can also save your version of a file as an alternate. Files are marked with icons that indicate whether they are open, in use, or have conflicting copies.

You can save a document by selecting File, Save from the application's menu bar, which overwrites all the changes you made, or you can select File, Save a Version to save a version of the document in Version Cue, adding comments to indicate the particular changes that this version represents. Saving a version enables you to go back later and work with the document in a particular state, as represented by the version you saved.

If you want to turn Version Cue off for any reason, you can choose Edit, Preferences, File Handling & Clipboard (Windows users) or InDesign, Preferences, File Handling &Clipboard (Mac users) and uncheck the Enable Version Cue check box.