Before using variants with your content, you need to define the requirements for your output. You can then create a plan to ensure that your content delivers your output requirements. It works best to use fewer, broader variant criteria, rather than too many highly granular variant criteria.
1. Plan
- Identify content where you can use variants.
- Consider the criteria you'll need for each variation of your content.
- Identify whether the book structure will remain the same or change for different variations of your content.
2. Create variant objects
- Identify which objects in the book require variants.
- Open the folder containing the object that you want to create variants of.
- Create the variant object and assign the appropriate criteria.
3. Update each variation of the content
- In Author, open the book object used by the content.
- Use the book's filter to set the variant criteria for a specific flavor of your content. Author 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 primary object won't be swapped out.
- Once the book is filtered, modify or update any variant objects in the Editor as usual. Or, open objects directly from the folder's object list and make your changes.
Note: In quick-editing mode you'll open individual variant topics from the object list and then make your modifications.