Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 7626
Alter "Compare Documents" to work for a Master Documents???
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:41:09 UTC
According to the OpenOffice.org 1.0.1 built-in help, there is a "Compare Document" facility hung off the "Edit" menu. But in fact, it didn't appear to be present on that menu ( for a Master Document ). I could have somehow missed it, but failed to find it on other stock menus as well. I did glean some hint that it may exist somewhere, by going into Tools - Configure..., the Menu tab. In the "Menu entries" panel Under "~Edit", I asked to modify "Compare Documents" but it was ostensibly already there, thus the modification was refused ( "Modify" button greyed out ). At first, I thought the configuration facility didn't work at all. So I tried to replace the "Compare Documents" facility on the "Edit" menu with something else. That worked. The changed item now appeared on the "Edit" menu, where not item was present before. After changing back "Compare Documents" on the "Edit" menu, and some poking around, I discovered that "Compare Documents" existed on the "Edit" menu when editing individual sub-documents of a Master Document. I can only guess, that it is *not* meant to work for Master Documents. Of course, I could have missed it, but I have not found anything in the documentation which states that this feature isn't supposed to work for Master Documents themselves. Suffice it to say that I had reason to compare to Master Documents themselves, not the sub-documents, so it would have been nifty for my purposes, if this feature worked for two Master Documents themselves, rather than just the sub- documents. Either way, unless I just missed the statement in the documentation, at a minimum, the documentation should be changed to state that the feature does not apply to Master Documents.
John, thanks for taking the time to post this issue. If my understanding of OOo is correct, Master Documents are like Templates in Word. It seems reasonable to assume that all Master Documents will be unique and comparing them would be useless. That's probably why Master Documents do not have the Compare Documents feature enabled. Thank you for using and supporting OOo.
For clarification, help can be requested on the keyword "template" in MS-Word Help, and then the keyword "master_document". Yes, include the underscore. The parallel Help search phrases in Ooo Writer are "template" and "master documents". Yes "documents" is plural, and no underscore is used with OOo Writer. I.E., "template" ! = "master document". In other words, in general concept, what is called a "template" in MS-Word, is called a "template" in OOo Writer, and what is called a "Master Document" in MS-Word is called a "Master Document" in OOo Writer.
Yes John, I missed the point with Master docs. I believe OOo's "Compare Documents" feature only works for straight documents. I'll change this to an enhancement request. User wants a "Compare Documents" feature for master documents.
Reassigned to BH.
Would it be possible to make 'compare documents' work for Master documents? Master documents are just like regular text documents (.odt), but with the ability to pull in sub documents (.odt files). The text in master documents can change, and it would be very good to have the possibility to see what changed.
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on my owner to the owner "requirements".