looking for Word 2000 "Review Toolbar" equivalent in OpenOffice

[bmcculley at rcn.com]

Can't help with OO but from my experience with Word, 
comments !== changes.  This may affect some of the suggested
work-arounds.

Think in-band vs. out of band.  

Changes are edits to the document content that modify it.  
Change tracking allows you to see a before and after view to
tell what changed.  When you print, the content has changed
somehow, whether or not you print the pre-modification view.

Comments are like margin notes, they don't change the content
at all.  If you print supressing the comments, the document
content is unchanged.

So a work-around based on comparing before and after may not
work, unless there is a feature to allow comments (not
changes) that can be suppressed for output.  

If such a feature does exist in OO but without the capability
Kevin requested to view such comments, it seems like it's only
half done.  Ergo I suspect it doesn't exist - if it does then
perhaps the feature Kevin desires does also, we just haven't
found it yet.  

Incidentally, this is very germane to the recent discussion
comparing proprietary software to open-source.  This
particular functionality is significant in enterprise
environments.  If it is not present, or is half-baked, it is a
deficiency that is a competitive disadvantage for the
open-source package.  If the functionality exists but is
difficult to find, that learning curve problem (!ease-of-use)
is a competitive disadvantage.

-Bruce McCulley


---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 1 Mar 2004 21:31:31 -0500
>From: "Ted Roche" <tedroche at tedroche.com>  
>Subject: RE: looking for Word 2000 "Review Toolbar"
equivalent in OpenOffice  
>To: "'Kevin D. Clark'" <kclark at cetaceannetworks.com>,
<gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
>
>Kevin:
>
>I dug through OOoSwitch
>(http://www.hentzenwerke.com/catalogpricelists/ooo501.htm),
as well as its
>shareware cousin, "Taming Open Office"
>(http://www.taming-openoffice-org.com/ftp/tow1-1.pdf) and
couldn't find a
>suggested replacement. Most of the functionality seems to be
available, but
>it's not as smooth as the Reviewing Toolbar. I wonder If you
could develop
>one based on customizing a toolbar.
>
>There's "almost as good" options, of course. File | Versions
will let you
>see different versions if they have been explicitly saved,
but it is not
>enabled by default. And for those fans following along, the
'Track Changes'
>equivalent is this: OO.o supports Word's markup scheme for
revisions: Edit |
>Changes | Show, or Record. The 'Record' option has to be
selected before
>that changes are made. I've swapped a number of documents
with Word users
>and the tracking is accurate.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: gnhlug-discuss-admin at mail.gnhlug.org
>[mailto:gnhlug-discuss-admin at mail.gnhlug.org] On Behalf Of
Kevin D. Clark
>Sent: Monday, March 01, 2004 4:28 PM
>To: gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
>Subject: looking for Word 2000 "Review Toolbar" equivalent in
OpenOffice
>
>
>
>In Word 2000 if I navigate thusly:
>
>  Edit -> Toolbars -> Reviewing
>
>I get a toolbar that allows me to see a reviewer's comments on a
>document.
>
>Is there equivalent functionality in OpenOffice 1.1?  I
checked but
>nothing obvious presented itself.
>
>Note: this functionality is different than the "track changes"
>feature.  I know about this.  I guess that I'm asking about
something
>else.  BTW, I have confirmed that "show changes" in
OpenOffice doesn't
>show me the reviewer's changes.
>
>Thanks for your help,
>
>--kevin
>-- 
>Kevin D. Clark / Cetacean Networks / Portsmouth, N.H. (USA)
>cetaceannetworks.com!kclark (GnuPG ID: B280F24E)
>alumni.unh.edu!kdc
>
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