Using Variant Objects to Create Your Documents

The following process can be used when working with variants. It is important to take enough time at the beginning of the process to plan how you will use the variants to create different flavors of your documents.

1. Planning

• Identify documents where you can use variants.
• Consider the criteria you'll need for each variation of your documents.
• Identify whether the book structure will remain the same or change for different variations of your documents.

2. Creating Variant Objects

• Identify which objects in the book require variants.
• Open the folder containing the object you want to create variants of.
• Create the variant object and assign the appropriate criteria.

3. Updating Each Variation of the Document

• Open the book object used by the document.
• Use book's filter to set the variant criteria for a specific flavor of the document. Author-it swaps out each parent object when it finds a variant that matches all of the selected criteria. If a variant only matches some of the criteria, the parent will not be swapped out.
• Once the book is filtered, you can modify or update any variant objects in the Editor as normal. Alternatively, you can open objects directly from the folder's object list and make your changes.
• Variable values are not carried over when you create a variant from an object containing a variable. In most cases you will replace the variable with the value required by that variant. However, if need to retain the variable, you'll need to assign the value at the object level.