Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 24845
Show the bars only when recording changes
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:37:36 UTC
I'm interested in change bars that say "Text has changed here, however, you'll need the original copy if you want to know what changed". I think this is the best approach when generating a PDF document or printing a document. <Taken from JHW<s post on the users mailing list, since she put it more eloquently that I> This function is needed for producing final copy in many situations. For example, I've often produced software manuals in which the changed lines or paragraphs are marked by vertical bars, but the text shows only the latest version of the text. Readers often want to be able to quickly find the new or changed info (for example, where the descriptions are of how to use new software features, or where corrections have been made in the document). At the moment you can do most of the job by accepting all the deletions (which then are removed completely from the file), changing the display of additions to use no special formatting or color, and having change bars turned on. This works fine unless you don't add something on the same line where you've deleted something. It's also no good if you want the deletions retained in the file for archive purposes, though a workaround for that is simply to archive the file with all the changes included, and then make the final published version from a copy of that file.
Reassigned to BH
The original reporter of this was being extra nice. For professional documents we must have a way to show change bars without the inserted/deleted text. I submit that this is not an enhancement request. This feature worked in previous versions of StarOffice and has been around since ancient versions of Word. The suggested workaround is not a workaround at all, because it doesn't always work (as it was clearly admitted in the post). The fix to this is simple: On the Options/Text-Document/Changes dialog, either add a display attribute of [Hidden] to each change type, or make [None] really mean what it says and display nothing. Please please please. This is important for your business users.
Expanding on this a little bit, I'd like to see separate change settings for editing and printing. For example, I may want to see the deletions while I edit, but I want them to be invisible when I print. Ditto the colored text. It would be nice not to have to change the settings back and forth every time you print.
I support this feature being supported. Marking the changed text in documents by changebars is standard at my workplace, and has been available in MS Word and FrameMaker for some time.
This is a duplicate of Issue 56006. I just tested this issue with OOo 3.1.0 Writer and it still remains unresolved. However, I think the suggestion given under Issue 56006 by me on Tue Oct 18 17:56:16 +0000 2005 as to how to resolve the problem is more precise that that given above by dan_higgins Thu Aug 19 22:07:59 +0000 2004. Please resolve this issue, it is still a problem for my organization as we must submit documents to customers that are clearly readable by customers (no strikethroughs and underlines but with change bars), which is still not possible with OOo Writer. Our workaround is to use Microsoft Word for such documents, which is not a satisfactory solution.
To grep the issues easier via "requirements" I put the issues currently lying on my owner to the owner "requirements".
This issue is being a "no go" in our transition to OOo. This issue is a "must have" in our office, as it is used to control reports. The way suggested by dan_higgins looks more reasonable than the one proposed by dlanderson in issue 56006, as he/she mentions only deleted texts, and this option shall be available to all types of modifications.
Hi there, Can you please address this issue. It has been around for nearly 9 years and we can still not hide deleted text. Because of this, we still use Microsoft products, which are costly and really annoying to use.