[Dropped] Compare documents

[Peter5004]

I don't often use this feature but I had occasion to run it today. The results were useless. Even where the corresponding paragraphs in the two documents differed in only one word, the app would highlight the entire paragraph as having been changed.

Yes I know 'compare' algorithms can get out of sync, but this happened on the very first difference between the two documents. How could they have lost sync?

Note that I recently upgraded to 4.1.16. I don't know if that's the problem.

I tried the same operation in LibreOffice and it works fine. But I have reasons for wanting to continue with OO rather than switch to LO.

Suggestions?

[MrProgrammer]

Note that I recently upgraded to 4.1.16. I don't know if that's the problem.

I'd bet that the Compare Documents feature hasn't been changed in 15 years.

The results [from Compare Document] were useless.

This feature is for comparing two versions (old and new) of the same document. Is that what you're doing? If not, it isn't appropriate to use Compare Document. If so, attach them so we can see the result. Identify them as Old and New.

Comparing Versions of a Document

The review function is available in OpenOffice for text documents and spreadsheet documents.

Imagine you have some co-authors or reviewers who collaborate with you writing your original document. One day you send out copies of your document to all reviewers. You ask them to edit the copy and send it back.

Normally, the reviewers enable change tracking by Edit - Changes - Record and you can easily see the changes.
If one of the authors has made changes to a document without recording them, you can compare the changed document to your original document.

1. Open the reviewer's document and then choose Edit - Compare Document.
You should always start with opening the newer document and compare it with the older document.
2. A file selection dialog appears. Select your older original document and confirm the dialog.
OpenOffice combines both documents into the reviewer's document. All text passages that occur in the reviewer's document but not in the original are identified as having been inserted, and all text passages that got deleted by the reviewer are identified as deletions.
3. You can now accept or reject the insertions and deletions. At the end you may save the reviewer's document as a new original with a new name.

[Peter5004]

This feature is for comparing two versions (old and new) of the same document. Is that what you're doing?

Yes. I can't think of any other reason why I'd want to use 'compare documents'!

OK I'll attach both versions and the result of the 'compare' operation. Please note that I am not the author of this extract (although it's in the public domain); nor did I do the curating of it. But I'm taking over some of the checking - which Is why I wanted to find out what the earlier curator changed.

[MrProgrammer]

Yes. I can't think of any other reason why I'd want to use 'compare documents'!

Maybe not you, but I can imagine that some people think they can use Writer as a general-purpose file comparison utility.

I tried the same operation in LibreOffice and it works fine. But I have reasons for wanting to continue with OO rather than switch to LO.

OpenOffice works the way it works. If LibreOffice provides a more useful comparison for you, then use it to show differences. Perhaps OpenOffice only keeps track of changes at the paragraph level. I doubt if there's any documentation which provides details about the process. Developers don't visit this forum. We're all users here, just like you. No one is going to update OpenOffice to work the way you want unless you ask them.
Reporting bugs or suggestions

I don't often use this feature but I had occasion to run it today.

Since you don't need to do comparisons often, why don't you use LibreOffice in this rare situation? I think you can tell LibreOffice to save the document in an OpenOffice-compatible format. I have never used the Compare Document feature myself, and learned a bit about it today, and this topic helps me and others understand the limitiations of the feature in OpenOffice. I decline to investigate any further, but perhaps others will.

If this solved your problem please go to your first post use the Edit ✏️ button and add [Solved] to the start of the Subject field. Select the green checkmark icon at the same time.

[Peter5004]

I obviously cannot mark this problem as "solved".

[DiGro]

I'm not sure what you expected to see.

Just to make sure: Did you activate Edit > Changes > Show ?

Because this is what I see in comparison.odt:

View of comparison.odt

view_comparison.png (21.15 KiB) Viewed 1972 times

The editors work, in blue, shows the part he/she added (underlined) and strike-through is what he/she deleted.

If you activate Edit > Changes > Accept or Reject you should see the list with edits in the file. Clicking on them brings you there

What did you expect to see?