Dear Christopher, I am attaching 3 documents which together illustrate
the comparison problem.
Version-1 is the original as submitted by the "author" to the "editor".
Version-2 is the final version after the editor has made some minor changes.
Version-1-to-2 is the result of LibreOffice Document Compare.
The changes made by the editor are as follows:
(1) one textual change ("so at" > "in order")
(2) two formatting changes ("essential" in bold and "refine it" in italics)
(3) split one long paragraph in three places for better readability
The editor has been a loyal user of OOo for over a decade. During that
time, she has seen ample effort spent on changing the colour of the
icons, while the totally dysfunctional and unhelpful Document Compare
functionality has been left in the Stone Age. Irked by this, she also
completely rewrites the footnote of the original version-1.
What help does Document Compare now offer her in identifying the changes
from version-1 to version-2?
First, a whole multicolour flap of text is identified by LibreOffice as
having been altered. The main body of text (excluding the footnote) now
comprises 374 words. Of these, LibreOffice marks 261 (70%) as changed
(inserted / deleted). Yet, she changed only two words (0.5%), inserted
three paragraph splits (0.8%), and made two formatting changes (0.5%).
Second, the complete rewrite of the footnote, entirely changing both its
meaning and its formatting, is totally ignored by Document Compare.
LibreOffice does not flag any change whatsoever. Thereby it actually
gives the totally false impression that, from version-1 to version-2,
the footnote has not been touched at all.
Now imagine, she does not have a one-page document as here, but a
50-page report or a 300-page book.
What help does LibreOffice give a writer, a collaborative group of
writers, or an editor when it comes to version control? They are simply
swamped by massive swathes of text identified as having been altered,
when in fact there might well be only an occasional change here and
there.
And footnotes, so important for technical and other precise detail, are
simply skipped - and worse, skipped without warning - by LibreOffice's
Document Compare. (Perhaps the same holds true for other text,
formatting or graphical elements as well, I have not checked.)
The version comparison algorithm of LibreOffice is just lazy,
incompetent and misleading, and it simply offloads its task onto the
human editor.
We might as well go back to our old Triumph and Olivetti typewriters of
the 1970s. This is also why, after more than 10 years of OpenOffice and
now LibreOffice, we still use Microsoft Office -- just for version
control.
It would seem a challenge relished by any good trainee programmer to
develop a competent file comparison algorithm for LibreOffice. At
least, had I got the programming skills, I for one would love the
challenge to solve it.
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/782406
Title:
LibreOffice Writer Document Compare (regression)
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