RE: What's a good versioning system for Office documents?

["Pradeep" <ninkozi -at- gmail -dot- com>]

You will probably have your opportunity to convinvce them of OO benefits in
2007, when the new Office comes out. Apparently the interface is highly
radical - they have removed menus completely!
 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: techwr-l-bounces+ninkozi=gmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com 
> [mailto:techwr-l-bounces+ninkozi=gmail -dot- com -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com]
>  On Behalf Of Edgar D' Souza
> Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 6:37 PM
> To: Paul Pehrson; List,Techwriter
> Subject: Re: What's a good versioning system for Office documents?
> 
> Thank you, Paul, for a great idea!
> 
> At the time we started on this project, Microsoft hadn't yet 
> caved in to demand and announced that they would be offering 
> the ODF converter plugin. However:
> 1. We're actually using Word 2000 for this project.
> 
> 2. The client's team (who are actually software engineers doubling as
> TWs) have (as I was informed) substantial inertia towards 
> learning new tools - for example, the GIMP for handling their 
> screenshot-and-layered-callouts requirement (or even 
> Photoshop, for that matter - the inertia is apparently 
> against learning curves, not OSS per se). They had insisted 
> that they would continue to use Word 2000, which they are 
> familiar with.
> 
> 3. Their software is capable of a high level of 
> customization, which means UI screenshots included with these 
> manuals need to be replaced with shots of the 
> post-customization UI by IT staff at /their/ customers' site. 
> Multiple customers for their product means that there is a 
> sizeable downstream from our client who are now settled on 
> Word's .doc file format.
> 
> Though the client said they'd stick with 2000, they /may/ be 
> willing to upgrade to Office 2003 if it offers a better SCCS 
> solution. And since we've been working in 2000 all this time, 
> the docs are guaranteed not to have any 2003-specific 
> features - so our clients'
> downstream shouldn't have problems working with documents 
> saved as .doc and passed on to them, even though our clients 
> may store them in OpenXML/ODF for their source control purposes.
> 
> Brilliant! This seems to be practically my solution, provided 
> the client is willing to go for it.
> Many thanks, Paul!
> 
> Regards,
> Ed.
> 
> On 7/11/06, Paul Pehrson <paulpehrson -at- gmail -dot- com> wrote:
> > I'm wondering if you've considered saving your files in a 
> non-MS format?
> >
> > If you were to save your documents in an XML format, then you could 
> > still check them in to a source control and have only the diffs 
> > stored, instead of storing the binary .doc files.
> >
> > Recent versions of MS Word allow you to save documents in 
> XML formats; 
> > I even read recently that in the next version of MS Word, MS will 
> > support the open-document format used by OpenOffice, 
> StarOffice, and 
> > others (through an optional, free, plug-in).
> >
> > Good luck finding a solution that works for you.
> >
> > Paul Pehrson
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