User Guide

Chapter 6: Organizing
Organizing with the Organize pane
The Organize pane is one of the most useful panes in ACDSee as it provides so many ways to
organizing, sort, group, search for, and manage your files.
Categories
Categories are an easy way to organize your files into groups or hierarchies that make sense to
you. When you assign a file to a category, you do not move the file from its folder or create an
extra copy. Your categories can be simple or complex and use any names you choose. There
are different icons to use for different categories to help you identify them at a glance. Once
your files are in categories, you can search, sort, group, and find them by category.
One way to assign files to a category is to select and drag one or more files from the file list
and drop them onto the category. Any file that is assigned to a category has a blue tab above
its thumbnail in the File List
. A file can belong to multiple categories, but it will only have
one blue tab.
You can also use the Database tab on the Properties pane to assign multiple files
to multiple categories with a few clicks.
Ratings
You can assign a numerical rating from 1 to 5 to your images and files. Once you have
assigned ratings, you can search, sort, and organize your files based on the ratings, or a
combination of ratings, categories, auto categories etc. A file can have only one rating. When a
file has a rating, the number appears on top of the thumbnail
in the File List.
Auto Categories
Most digital cameras create and embed information about the file as you take a photo. This
information is called metadata and can include the name and model of the camera, the file
size, shutter speed, camera settings used in the shot and much more. ACDSee uses this
information to create auto categories. When you click on an auto category, ACDSee searches
for images containing that metadata. You can select one or more auto categories to find files,
for example, photos of a certain size, taken by a particular camera. You can also add to this
data using the Properties panes.
Saved Searches
If you find yourself creating the same search criteria frequently, you can save the search to use
again later. Saved searches appear at the top of the Search pane but they also appear in the
Organize pane for you to re-run using a single click on the name or in the white checkbox of
the Easy-select bar.