Navigating Complex Document History in Collabora Online Writer

COOL Days 2026 (https://www.collaboraonline.com/events/cool-days-2026/)

Transcript

1. Navigating Complex Document History Miklos Vajna Senior Software Engineer 2026-04-28
2. 2/12 Navigating document history and branching without losing your mind Interdependent tracked changes improvements in Writer
3. 3/12 One change on top of another change Example: insert, then delete • Larger insertion • Part of that selected • Then delete • By somebody else • Works in DOCX, ODT
4. 4/12 Another example: insert, then format Some rules • Insert is never on top of something • Format is always on top • Gives: • Insert, then delete • Insert, then format • Delete, then format • Accept, reject, undo, redo • Compressing redlines
5. 5/12 Side-by-side document comparison If you don’t like showing changes inline
6. 6/12 Non-interactive document compare Compare two documents with our REST API • curl -k -F "data=@new.docx" -F "compare=@old.docx" -F "format=pdf" -o out.pdf https://example.com:9980/cool/convert-to • Works with ODT, DOC, RTF, too • Output can be PDF, DOCX, ODT, DOC, RTF • Documentation: https://sdk.collaboraonline.com/docs/conversion_a pi.html#compare-compare-option
7. 7/12 Interactive document compare Works for any text document: • Local documents • Documents in the file sync & share storage
8. 8/12 Document compare view Red means deleted content, green means inserted comment • Images also get colored frames
9. 9/12 Document compare view: labels Details of the old/new document: • Left hand side: old name, date, author • Right hand side: new one
10. 10/12 Document compare view: highlights Triggered with mouse hover • Highlights both sides of a change, to match them easily • Color depends on change type
11. 11/12 Document compare view: UI Changes can be shown inline or side-by-side • Default: show inline • Can change to side-by-side view • Can hide changes completely: just show the new version
12. 12/12 Summary COOL Writer supports interdependent changes and side-by-side view • Interdependent changes help editing an already change-tracked document • Reinstate: reuse deleted text as an insert that you can edit • Side-by-side compare view • Useful if you’re not trained how to map underline/strike- through to change types • API + UI for comparing documents for any text file • All major use-cases covered • Available in Collabora Online 25.04