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After you install and launch ABBYY Vantage Advanced Designer, the start page opens. From here you connect to a Vantage server, create a new skill, or open an existing skill from the Skill Catalog.
New to Advanced Designer? Walk through the tutorial to build your first Document skill end to end.

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First-launch flow

1

Connect to a Vantage server

The Skill Catalog you see depends on the server you connect to. See Install and run Advanced Designer for sign-in steps.
2

Create or open a skill

Use one of the Create… buttons on the start page, or double-click an existing skill in the Skill Catalog or Recent Skills.

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Create a new skill

The start page provides four ways to create a skill. The same options are available from the main menu. The new skill appears immediately in the Skill Catalog. It becomes usable in Vantage once you publish it.

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Open an existing skill

To open an existing skill, double-click it in the Skill Catalog or Recent Skills.
  • Skill Catalog — every Document and Document Splitter skill on the Vantage server you’re currently connected to.
  • Recent Skills — recently edited skills, including those on other Vantage servers. Selecting a skill from a different server prompts you to sign in. To remove an entry, right-click and choose Remove from Recent; this does not delete the skill from the Skill Catalog.
Both lists show name, version, description, current editor, server (Recent Skills only), and last-modified date. A skill receives a version number only after it has been published.

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Editable copies

Unpublished changes are stored in an editable copy of the skill. An editable copy exists from the moment you create or first open a skill for editing until you publish it; once published, the editable copy is deleted. Each skill can have only one editable copy. While Advanced Designer is copying documents from the published version into a new editable copy, training, testing, and publishing are temporarily unavailable. Copy progress appears on the Documents tab.

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Manage skills from the start page

You can import, export, duplicate, delete, publish, and discard pending changes for a skill directly from the Skill Catalog on the start page. These actions use the same workflows as the Vantage Skill Catalog.
Skills exported from Advanced Designer can be imported into Vantage, and vice versa. When you import an Advanced Designer skill into Vantage, only the data form is editable; the rest of the skill data is preserved and becomes available again if you re-import the skill into Advanced Designer.

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Return to the start page

Select Go to Start Page from the main menu at any time. Close Skill also returns you to the start page and closes any open skill — you can reopen it from Recent Skills.