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I thought of using the FODT output format for tracking the history of files using Git SCM.

But it seems that FODT is quite verbose. For example

  • I generated a file That contains Hello Wordld!
  • I changed the Text to Hello World.
  • Then I checked the diff.
  • I found the expected change:
    • <text:p text:style-name="P1">Hello World!</text:p> became
    • <text:p text:style-name="P1">Hello World.</text:p>
  • Besides that there were several more changes:
    • <config:config-item config:name="ViewLeft" config:type="long">7239</config:config-item> became
    • <config:config-item config:name="ViewLeft" config:type="long">7204</config:config-item>.
    • <config:config-item config:name="Rsid" config:type="int">555044</config:config-item> became:
    • <config:config-item config:name="Rsid" config:type="int">600727</config:config-item>
    • And <office:meta> <meta:initial-creator>User Name</meta:initial-creator> <meta:creation-date>2016-07-25T16:27:51.917460530</meta:creation-date> <dc:date>2016-07-25T16:29:26.496847405</dc:date> <dc:creator>User Name</dc:creator> <meta:editing-duration>PT28S</meta:editing-duration> <meta:editing-cycles>2</meta:editing-cycles> <meta:generator>LibreOffice/5.0.3.2$Linux_X86_64 LibreOffice_project/00m0$Build-2</meta:generator> <meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="0" meta:image-count="0" meta:object-count="0" meta:page-count="1" meta:paragraph-count="1" meta:word-count="2" meta:character-count="12" meta:non-whitespace-character-count="11"/> </office:meta> became:
    • <office:meta> <meta:initial-creator>User Name</meta:initial-creator> <meta:creation-date>2016-07-25T16:27:51.917460530</meta:creation-date> <dc:date>2016-07-25T16:32:10.113010925</dc:date> <dc:creator>User Name</dc:creator> <meta:editing-duration>PT30S</meta:editing-duration> <meta:editing-cycles>3</meta:editing-cycles> <meta:generator>LibreOffice/5.0.3.2$Linux_X86_64 LibreOffice_project/00m0$Build-2</meta:generator> <meta:document-statistic meta:table-count="0" meta:image-count="0" meta:object-count="0" meta:page-count="1" meta:paragraph-count="1" meta:word-count="2" meta:character-count="12" meta:non-whitespace-character-count="11"/> </office:meta>

I think changes in Meta-Data are perfectly fine but changes of config:config-item make me think that FODT is probably not designed to be used for VCS like Git.

Is there a less verbose format, Or a way to reduce the number of changes in the XML-File to a minimum?

The Description on https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/XML_File_Formats indicates, that I can influence the output,...

Edward
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1 Answers1

2

RTF files saved from Writer:

Hello World!}{\rtlch \ltrch\loch

Changed to:

Hello World.}{\rtlch \ltrch\loch

The downside is that any format besides .odt will be limited as to what it can save.

Jim K
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  • Unfortunately RTF can not save spacing to contents (in table cells). Do you have any idea why those values of the `config-item` change? – Edward Jul 26 '16 at 09:25
  • Alos see: https://ask.libreoffice.org/en/question/51617/how-to-avoid-fodt-file-attributes-changing-on-every-save/ – Edward Jul 26 '16 at 10:12