Why not treat them like any other element?

The main reason is this: when searching for alphabets you only really want to see a sample of the alphabet instead of the whole alphabet. If you get back 26 alphabet letters times the number of alphabets you have, you have bunches and bunches of images to look through.

Using Categories

If you use categories, you can place a category tag on select letters of the alphabet.

With categories, we recommend assigning the alphabet category to the uppercase A, lowercase A and number 1 or to alpha preview if there is one. This way you can easily tell if you have an uppercase, lowercase or numbers for that alphabet.

Using Keywords

Or you can use keywords and assign a keyword to the folder containing the alphabet. With categories, you are not allowed to categorize a folder.

With keywords, we recommend placing your alphabet in a folder and typically the designer has already done this for you already. Once you have the alphabet images placed in the folder, apply the "alpha" keyword to it. You can also apply an "alpha" keyword to the first few alphabet letters if they aren't in a separate folder. Or you can apply the "alpha" keyword to an entire file if the whole alphabet is one image.

How to assign & search with Categories:

Assigning and searching is the same for any other elements.

How to assign with Keywords:

1. Open the Properties Pane, View | Properties (Keyboard shortcut to flip between Organize Pane & Properties Pane: Alt - Enter)

2. Select the folder of alpha's

3. In Keyword box in the Properties Pane - type 'alpha'

4. For next folder of alpha's, just type an 'a' and alpha will autofill in and press enter.

   

How to use quick search with Keywords:

The easiest way to search for alpha's is to use the Quick Search in the toolbar.

1. If you don't see it, go to View | Toolbars | Quick Search Toolbar or keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+S.
2. In the quick search window, type "alpha" and press Quick Search

Note: If you are getting more than expected, go to the quick search options. Change the Quick Search Options:

Click on the down arrow next to Quick Search

and this will bring up the Quick Search Options:

• Include file names: This will return an results with "alpha" in the name. Uncheck or check as you prefer.

• Include categories: Since you put alphabet's as a keyword uncheck this as it not needed.

• Include contents of folders: This will return any images that have alpha in their folder names. This will return many of your alphabet's including the ones that aren't keyworded yet. This may or may not be useful to you.

A more in-depth search of alphabets:

Why use this method over the Quick Search method? It gives you more control on your search. The main reasons why I like this search is if you only want alphabets back from certain directories, I would suggest using the more in-depth search.

1. In the Search Pane, (View | Search)

2. In the Properties Box, Click on Add.

3. Click on ACD Database and choose Keywords. You should now see this:

4. Now click on <Click to Set> and alpha, then click Assign, then OK

5. Click on Start

By default you will search your entire database. You can narrow your search, if you choose Specific folders and categories and set specific categories or folders.