Selecting Which Dialog To Use To Modify Document Properties

When you want to modify document properties, you can use one of the following dialogs:

Document Properties dialog (Document > Properties)
Modify Document(s) dialog (Document > Modify)
Rename Document dialog (Document > Rename)

If you only need to edit a document’s name, description, and/or file name, then the Rename Document dialog is the dialog you should use.

The Document Properties dialog and Modify Document(s) dialogs can also be used to edit a document’s name, description, and/or file name, but they also let you edit additional document properties. While they both share some capabilities, each dialog has some advantages over the other. For example, the Document Properties dialog displays all of a document’s properties, whereas the Modify Document(s) dialog only displays a subset of the general properties. The Modify Document(s) dialog can be used to edit properties of multiple documents simultaneously, whereas the Document Properties dialog can only be used to edit the properties of one document at a time. In the end, the dialog you choose to use depends on what you need to accomplish.

Use the Document Properties dialog when you need to:

view all properties of a single document from one place (which include general properties, environment attributes, file properties, the document's history (audit trail), any related components, associated workspace settings, and which users have which permissions to the document)
edit any editable property of the selected document
browse the properties of all documents in a folder (when the Document Properties dialog is open, use the forward and backward arrows at the bottom of the dialog to view the properties of the next or previous document in the folder.
view or print a document’s audit trail
set security on a document (you can also use the Access Control tab in the Preview Pane for this)
modify workspace settings for a document
view a document’s file properties
view a document’s related components

Use the Modify Document(s) dialog when you need to:

modify properties of multiple documents simultaneously
define document name and description property values, or environment attribute values, using ProjectWise variables

Tip: For example, using the Modify Document(s) dialog you can add the property variable, Document Created By, to the document name, so that as part of the name it will have the name of the user who created the document.

Tip: The Modify Document(s) dialog can be used to edit a document’s file name only if you are using it to edit a single document, and only by using the document name locking feature. Otherwise, the file name property cannot be edited using the Modify Document(s) dialog.