I just got hired at a small business. I don't have a lot of experience with MACs, so I need to know some best practices here.
I am working with CS3, Ai, Ps, Id, and later, Dw.
It's a magazine publishing company. I have it organizing so each magazine has its folder, and I want to have an "old editions" and a "working edition" folders. Within each, I want to break it down into "Ads this issue", "Links", and "stories".
The Ads and Links are where I'm concerned. I want to have a copy of each ad's file within that folder, and a copy of all the other files its linked to, so that if the original ads/images get moved, the links won't be disturbed.
I'm wondering if there is a way to do this without bogging down the machine's HD with duplicates of really large files. The machine moves slow enough as it is.
I've theorized that I could:
A) keep the Main "Ads" folder along with the subfolders compressed, and the "old editions" compressed, and have a regular copy in the working folder only. This also works because the ads get edited for different editions sometimes.
or
B) Is there a way to do this with Aliases? Being unfamiliar with alias, or even shortcuts, because I haven't worked in an actual production environment yet, I don't know they functionality of linking alias into an ID file. I read a couple of previous posts and the outlook isn't very good for it.
or
C) Just place a PDF (or whatever you guys think is the best quality preserving filetype) in with the magazine itself? Then each company could have its own ad folder with all the rest of the files...
What do you all think? If you can even link me to a post that goes into further detail on which option you think is best, or if you have a different solution, that would be wonderful. I am open to answers.
I want to be sure to leave a cleaner computer/work environment then the last few punks who were here... That's my "best practice". Documentation and file organization got drilled into me at Uni.