Yesterday I ran into a problem: I had to send the same document to a self-publishing service and to a typography, but each had different specifications regarding page size and margins. This forced me to make a duplicate of the document and re-format it according to the different specs.
I thought: "That's so annoying. What if I decide to change something within the document in a later revision? If I find any errors in the text, I'll have to make the corrections to both copies for the reprints. Or change one and repeat the process of duplicating and reformatting the whole damn thing".
That led me to think it would be nice to have a chance to save different page layouts in a document and change them on the go. I could stick with a single master document to edit, then change the page formatting ONLY with a single click and export the proper version for a customer to review, then one for the typography, one for Amazon and so on. I could even try different page layouts for myself without making definitive changes to the document.
Photoshop has a similar function, it's called Layer Comps. It's a tool that saves the order and visibility of layers within a graphic file. All these parameters are saved in a layer comp with a name, then all layer comps appear in a list and the user can switch between them easily. It's used to present customers with multiple versions of a graphic document to choose from, or to export different versions of a file destined to different platforms, or to make variants of an illustration.
I would really enjoy having a similar tool in Atlantis. I could save page size, margins, orientation, styles, maybe even print specs in a separate file, then load it to instantly reformat my document, so that I can present print drafts with a different layout or export it to PDF format. WITHOUT ever making a redundant copy!
Photoshop has a built-in panel for Layer Comps. It would be nice to have your page layouts listed in the Control Board, but that would require adding a new panel. Also, the DOCX format does not support such a feature, however I guess Atlantis might do the same simply by saving the specs to an external file, like it does for the program settings. Atlantis already offers the chance to copy and paste page specs after all, so why could it not allow the user to save them?
Ok I'm done, tell me your thoughts, thank you
