ACDSee, organizing kit contents with lots of pieces?

[massingfamily]

Does anyone have any suggestions?:shrug

I downloaded the trial, and have tagged everything else I have for digi scrapping EXCEPT the digi kits. There are TONS of pieces, literally hundreds!

Do I really need to go one by one and tag each piece, or are there any tips or tricks.

I am totally dreading it, but I know in the end it will make it so much easier for me to scrap a page in a decent amount of time....:eek

Thanks in advanced if anyone has a suggestion!

[maggie965]

I'm sure there' s an easier way but I tag piece by piece!

ETA: but I do group them so I may be tagging several kits at one time. Makes it a little faster.

[Christine Smith]

I haven't found any other way than to group by file type (at least keeps all the papers together in a clump) and start tagging. It can be overwhelming at first but it IS worth it. Set a time limit like 15 minutes at a time and start tagging

[Just Plain Kristi]

Try my Speed Tagging (http://digiscrapinfo.com/wordpress/2008/01/22/speed-tagging-with-kristi/) tutorial if you really want to tag every item.

Some other ways to do it...tag just previews for element sets then shop your previews like it's your own personal store on your hard drive. I cover that concept in my Foundations blog series (http://digiscrapinfo.com/wordpress/2008/10/27/new-organizing-style-called-foundations/).

Also, if you're not tagging for color, when you have multiple items in different colors...like bows for example...just tag one. That way you're not wading through lots of copies of the same thing when looking through search results. You can always do a right-click|'go to file' to see what else is in that kit if you find a bow you like (or recolor it yourself if you're good at that.)

Hope those tips helped.

I recommend starting with previews and then seeing what you find yourself searching for the most. I had to tag my wordart and frames right off but fasteners are still lumped together...I guess I'm more flexible about how I want to attach things when I'm scrapping...lol! It's about you and your scrapping style though so find a starting point then customize to make it work for you.

Kristi

[AliSarah]

I really only tag my preview images for each kit that I have... I generally scrap with just one or two kits at a time so the most important thing for me is being able to find their folder quickly... So, once the previews are tagged in ACDSee, I can just hover over the preview for the kit I want, and the exact address on my computer comes up... Then, I can go straight to the kit I want to use. This saves me tons of time in trying to find a certain kit, and saves me a lot of time tagging too, lol...

Huggles!!
~Sarah~

[Heidi@DigiScrapInfo.com]

I really only tag my preview images for each kit that I have... I generally scrap with just one or two kits at a time so the most important thing for me is being able to find their folder quickly... So, once the previews are tagged in ACDSee, I can just hover over the preview for the kit I want, and the exact address on my computer comes up... Then, I can go straight to the kit I want to use. This saves me tons of time in trying to find a certain kit, and saves me a lot of time tagging too, lol...

Huggles!!
~Sarah~

Sarah, rather than hover and look at the folder path, it is much easier to right click on preview and choose go to file.

[AliSarah]

oohhhh.... cool trick!! :D

Thanks!! :D

Either way, it's faster for me than trying to tag the whole kit, lol...

Huggles!!
~Sarah~

[Lindabglw]

When I first started using ACDSee, I tagged everything - every frame, every paper, every brad....everything. But I kept acquiring new stuff and put it in a folder called "untagged". Well, I never found the time or desire to tag all this new stuff and this "untagged" folder grew and grew and I had all this stuff I wasn't really able to use because I couldn't find it easily.

So, I started over. I went through each kit and tagged previews only. And the same with element packs - tagged the previews only. For the kits, I tagged them with every word I thought I might search for someday. So, some kits got two or three tags. Occasionally, I would notice something that I wanted to tag separately, like a photo mask or overlay, so I would do that. But, generally, I just tagged the previews and now I feel better knowing that I can find what I need when I'm ready to scrap.

ETA: I did also tag all alphas separately. For the ones that didn't have a separate alpha preview, I just tagged one of the letters. So, if I'm looking for an alpha, I can find all that I have regardless of which kit they are in.