Bug 169175 - Add ability to override user name in document comparison
Summary: Add ability to override user name in document comparison
Status: RESOLVED INSUFFICIENTDATA
Alias: None
Product: LibreOffice
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Writer (show other bugs)
Version:
(earliest affected)
Inherited From OOo
Hardware: All All
: medium enhancement
Assignee: Not Assigned
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks: Document-Comparison
  Show dependency treegraph
 
Reported: 2025-10-31 17:56 UTC by Gabor Kelemen (Collabora)
Modified: 2026-02-03 12:25 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:
Crash report or crash signature:


Attachments
Changed example file from Writer (14.83 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2025-10-31 17:56 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (Collabora)
Details
Original document for comparison (14.46 KB, application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text)
2025-10-31 17:56 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (Collabora)
Details
The Manage Changes dialog after comparing the two files (71.22 KB, image/png)
2025-10-31 17:57 UTC, Gabor Kelemen (Collabora)
Details

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Description Gabor Kelemen (Collabora) 2025-10-31 17:56:22 UTC
Created attachment 203641 [details]
Changed example file from Writer

When doing document comparison, the tracked changes are created in the name of the current user.

This can be sometimes not desirable, for example when user Alice is comparing a document changed by Bob does not want to see the changes as "made by Bob", but "made by ACME Inc." where Bob works.

Adding a checkbox and a field to Options - Writer - Comparison could help achieving this in an enterprise setting.

1. Open attached file comment-lorem.odt
2. Go to Edit - Track Changes - Compare Document
3. Select second attachment starting-lorem.odt
-> In the comparison window the Manage Changes dialog opens, displaying changes made by the current user as set in Options - User Data. 

There is no other way to override this first/last name settings just for the comparison process.
Comment 1 Gabor Kelemen (Collabora) 2025-10-31 17:56:45 UTC
Created attachment 203642 [details]
Original document for comparison
Comment 2 Gabor Kelemen (Collabora) 2025-10-31 17:57:09 UTC
Created attachment 203643 [details]
The Manage Changes dialog after comparing the two files
Comment 3 Heiko Tietze 2025-11-04 13:27:46 UTC
I cannot confirm the issue. 

STR:

* dummy text for user Heiko Tietze, first word with some comment, second word with another
* dummy text for user Benjamin Franklin, first word with some comment, third word with another
* dummy text for user Eve Adams, first word with some comment, fourth word with another

Result:
* first word comment becomes overwritten
* following words comments on different positions are kept with the author

Version: 25.8.2.2 (X86_64) / LibreOffice Community
Build ID: 580(Build:2)
CPU threads: 32; OS: Linux 6.17; UI render: default; VCL: kf6 (cairo+xcb)
Locale: de-DE (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US
25.8.2-4
Calc: threaded

Btw: I submitted the extension https://extensions.libreoffice.org/en/extensions/show/99444 that changes all comments in a document for bug 162424. The opposite of what is asked here, AFAIU.
Comment 4 Heiko Tietze 2026-02-03 12:25:10 UTC
No further comment, closing the ticket for now.