Feature suggested - short description: Ability to combine various documents from multiple authors into one, including their comments. Use case: Often one base document is produced, which is sent out to multiple reviewers. These reviewers add their comments to the base document and sent it back to the original author, most likely to be discussed in the group and eventually be finalised. Since the most efficient process is that reviewers work in parallel, the original author receives many versions of the same document, each with its individual set of comments by reviewers. In current LO Writer (v 7.3): In current LO Writer, the “Compare” and “Merge” options are not able to produce one resulting document that contains all potential changes by reviewers (Track changes), while also keeping all comments of all reviewers. Both LO functions execute changes, either not keeping the base document (text), and, most importantly, sees the documents as different, and thus will not include, or delete some reviewers comments. In addition, the LO merge option can also result in just glueing together of multiple documents, resulting in a duplication of the same text. Fact that this use case can’t be (to my knowledge) achieved makes LO Wiriter unfit for use in a collaborative productivity setting. Example of working example elsewhere: MS Word “Review > Compare> Combine (with comments)” function (https://www.technipages.com/word-merge-comments-and-changes-from-multiple-documents)
Thank you for your request. I add desing-team for further input and decision
How about a confirmation dialog asking "Keep comments from both documents? [Yes] [No]" after picking the file via merge documents?
Created attachment 178834 [details] Example of COMBINE of different document versions
I've been playing around with this during the weekend, and think I found that LO 7.3 can do this, but you have to know how and fight your reflexes. The way I managed it is (see attached examples): [] The owner of the document (original.odf) writes the doc and sent it out to reviewers. [] Reviewer 1 deleted something and added a comment (reviewer_001.odf) [] Same thing for reviewer_002.odf [] Having received the reviewed docs back, document owner opens the original, base document (original.odf) and turns on TRACKS CHANGES (if not ON already). [] Then EDIT > TRACK CHANGES > MERGE DOCUMENT [] Document owner selects reviewer_001.odf to merge with original.odf. [!!!] ACCEPT/ REJECT window comes up. Document owner *DOES NOT* ACCEPT OR REJECT ANYTHING BUT JUST HITS *CLOSE*. [] Result: changes from reviewer_001.odf are added to original.odf. A SAVE AS under a new name would be wise (result.odf). [] Document owner repeats this process, now adding the changes of reviewer_002.odf to the (new) result.odf, again hitting *CLOSE*. [] Document owner saves result.odf, which now holds the original base text, and all changes and comments from reviewer 1 and 2. So thank you gentlemen for thinking with me on this! Like I wrote, it's possible, although perhaps not clear in the GUI, and by fighting your reflexes to "go for the obvious" (ACCEPT/ REJECT). Whether the devs want to hard code this procedure and put it under a menu option/ button as a (cheap and easy ;) new feature, I leave to those smarter than me...
...although playing with this further, I do notice this only works if reviewers change the original, base document (original.odf). When, as frequently happens in practice, one of the reviewers picks a version of one of the other reviewers and starts changing, adding to that, then LO comes back with a "Can't merge documents". Executing this scenario with "Combine" function in Word does succeed, and results again in a document with all alterations and comments combined into one final document.
(In reply to Bella vGFH from comment #4) > [!!!] ACCEPT/ REJECT window comes up. Document owner *DOES NOT* ACCEPT OR > REJECT ANYTHING BUT JUST HITS *CLOSE*. Merging documents is a different action than managing changes. Your comment sounds as if you take this dialog as a confirmation for the merge operation. So the actual request is not a bug neither requires enhancement. It might be a documentation gap. Do you agree, Bella? Laszlo, can we improve the situation at combining documents from comment 5?
(In reply to Heiko Tietze from comment #6) > (In reply to Bella vGFH from comment #4) > > [!!!] ACCEPT/ REJECT window comes up. Document owner *DOES NOT* ACCEPT OR > > REJECT ANYTHING BUT JUST HITS *CLOSE*. > > Merging documents is a different action than managing changes. Your comment > sounds as if you take this dialog as a confirmation for the merge operation. > > So the actual request is not a bug neither requires enhancement. It might be > a documentation gap. Do you agree, Bella? > > Laszlo, can we improve the situation at combining documents from comment 5? Hi Heiko, Sorry, not that much into nomenclature, just trying to get a job done ;) But yes, I do indeed see managing changes as something different than merging documents. Then again, I did notice, playing around with this, that merging documents can also mean "just gluing them together", which in my use case would lead to a multiplication of the same text. In addition, there is I mentioned earlier; if a reviewer takes a (later) version of one of the other reviewers who shared their comments earlier, the "just hit close" work around does not work. This means bottom line that: [] Yes, LO can combine the documents *with* their comments if all reviewers start/ work in the original document (original.odf) exclusively. [] However, if reviewers work in one of the later versions, adding their changes/ comments to a later version of one of the other reviewers, then LO throws an error (and I have to resort to the COMBINE" function of MS Word).
Thinking again this might be not fixable. Consider a situation when reviewer1 complained about some word, you change it, and reviewer2 comments on the same word. No way to align all input unless you make sure the source is not touched. And since merging documents works as expect, with some quirks, let's close the ticket as wontfix.