About versions

Many documents evolve over time. When authors need to update documents in an object store, they check them out of the object store, which downloads the current version to their local disk. After updating the document, an author checks the document back into the object store. This process automatically assigns a new version number to a document.

There are major and minor versions of documents. An author can use the object store to back up work, but check in only minor versions of the document until it is considered final enough to be viewed by a larger audience. At this point, the document can be checked in as or promoted to a major version. This process is similar to publishing in that source documents could be compared to minor (current) versions and publication documents could be compared to major (released) versions.

Most authors select major (released) versions of documents to publish. Publication documents automatically become major (released) versions, although they can be demoted to minor versions in the document's information window. Publish templates are also saved as major versions and cannot be demoted to minor versions.

To see version information for any of these document types (source document, publication document, publish template), navigate to the document in Workplace's Browse mode. Click the information icon at the far right of the document name, then click the Versions link in the left pane of the Information window.

If the Workplace user changes the name of the publication document when republishing, the new name appears in Browse mode. Depending on the republish instructions, there can be a list of versions or only the latest version in the information window.

Since source documents might have been updated multiple times, Workplace authors can choose to publish the Current version, the Released version, or they can choose a version from the list of all versions. See Test your publish template.

Most documents are versionable (that is, they have versions), but you can also encounter non-versionable documents.

The document class determines whether its documents are versionable. Your administrators set up document classes, so you need to know which document classes are to be used for which documents at your site.

When creating a publish template, you can specify a document class for its publication documents. So it is possible to publish versionable source documents that have non versionable publication documents.