What is Increment and Save, and how should I version my files while designing?

The habit

File > Increment and Save saves your file with an automatically incrementing number: if the file name ends in an underscore or hyphen followed by a number, that number goes up by 1 (sign_01.crv becomes sign_02.crv, then sign_03.crv). It keeps incrementing until it finds a name that does not exist yet, so it never overwrites an existing file. Every meaningful design stage becomes a restore point.

Why it matters more here than in most apps

1. Undo history is lost when the file closes. Yesterday's experiment cannot be undone today. Increments can.
2. Destructive edits are normal here: welding text, baking components, converting text to curves and node-editing a trace are all one-way operations. An increment before each one is cheap insurance.
3. Crash insurance: a corrupted latest file (see the crash/Code 3 entry) costs one increment, not the project.
4. Client work: "can we go back to how it was Tuesday" becomes easy.

The workflow

• Increment at natural milestones: after layout, before welding text, before toolpathing, before any big experiment.
• Keep increments in the project folder, and prune old ones when the piece has shipped.
• Pair this with the local-disk rule (never design directly in a cloud-sync folder; see the crash entry) and sync the folder afterwards.

Pro tips

• The last increment before toolpathing is gold. Label it (sign_07_FINAL-layout.crv) so future-you re-toolpaths from the right base.
• Also see the templates entry. Templates and increments together are the whole file-discipline story.
• Official documentation: File menu (Increment and Save)
• Mark Lindsay: Absolute Beginner Part 7, Offset Vectors and Increment and Save
• Mark Lindsay: Absolute Beginner Part 7 (2018)