Variant

If you have set up variants for a document, then you select a variant while you create the document. If necessary, you can change the variant again afterwards. The variant can affect the appearance, content, and the editing options in the document.

How to Identify Whether You Can Select or Change a Variant

If you can choose variants for a document, the Variants option is listed in the Setup area of the Document tab in the document editor. Choose to open the dialog box where you can select or change the variant.

If a document has variables, the step 1 button in the Customizing wizard is displayed as shown in the screen shot below:

The number and icon are displayed in dark gray, an arrow is displayed on the right side of the button, and the message No variant selected yet is displayed in red next to the variant.

If you do not need to choose a variant, the button is displayed as follows:

The number and icon are displayed in a lighter color and a lock is displayed on the right side of the button. No information text is displayed. In this case, you can continue editing the next step directly.

What Can Be Changed by Variants

When you choose a variant, you can change the following items:

Texts: in a variant, the designer can change how you can edit texts within it, whether the variable is a text or date variable, and which help tools the designer provides for you. The help tools in this case are the support provided by the designer for editing a text variable (for example, a processing order for the variables, marking a variable as a mandatory field, or check functions such as a recommended text character count).
Images: in a variant, the designer can change the sources from which the images can be selected, whether you can select an image section, and which help tools the designer provides you for editing the image variables. The help tools in this case are the support provided by the designer for editing the image variables (for example, a help text or a specification of whether the original image is allowed or whether you have to process the image variable as a mandatory field).

Where You Choose a Variant

You can choose a variant at two points:

In the customizing wizard, by opening Step 1 – Choose variant.
When you choose Step 3 – Edit document in the customizing wizard, the document editor opens. In the document editor, you can choose a variant in the Setup area on the Document tab.

Additional Settings

In the template, one variant can be defined as the default variant and is then preset in the picklist. If you want to define a variant as the default variant, select the variant in the picklist and then click the button Save selection as default. Note that this is not possible with all picklists.

The preview in the customizing wizard may no longer be up to date due to the selection of the variant. To display the latest preview in the customizing wizard, activate the checkbox Update preview when saving if variant selection is no longer current. Note that it may take some time to update the preview.

Choosing a Variant

Prerequisite:

On the Document tab, choose in the Setup area.

The Choose variant dialog box opens. At least one picklist is displayed:

Choose a variant from each picklist.
If possible: choose a variant as the default for each picklist.
Optional: activate the checkbox Update preview when saving if variant selection is no longer current if you want to update the preview immediately. Note that it may take some time to update the preview.
Click Save.

The dialog box closes. You have chosen a variant.

Next Step

In the next step, you edit the texts and images (see Texts and Images).