Tracking Changes and Version Management with LibreOffice

LibreOffice, the free and open-source office suite comes with a handy collaborative edit feature, which records changes to a document.

It lets you view the changes, comment on it, approve or reject changes etc. You can find this feature handy if multiple users (or a workgroup) utilize LibreOffice Writer or Spreadsheets.

So, how can you use this feature? What do you have to do to track changes and versions of a document meant for collaboration?

Considering you already have the latest LibreOffice installed, let me tell you about it here.

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For real-time collaboration, you need LibreOffice online (managed or your own hosted solution). We are not discussing that here.

Enabling to Record Changes

By default, the feature is not enabled. So, first, you need to enable it.

Open LibreOffice and go to Edit → Track Changes → Record.

Click on Record from Track Changes submenu in Edit option on LibreOffice top bar, to start recording the changes — Toggle Record feature

Now, you need to enable the Track changes toolbar, for convenience. For this, go to View → Toolbars → Track Changes.

Enable the Track Changes toolbar from LibreOffice Main Menu — Enable Track Changes

You can see a small toolbar appeared on the bottom.

Track Changes Toolbar in LibreOffice — Track Changes Toolbar

You can use these buttons to manage the changes. Options like accept/reject/ changes, adding comments, and comparing versions can be found here.

Add User Data

Before you start working with recording changes, you must add User Data, to identify changes. Without this, any change made will be marked as something done by “Unknown user”.

First, go to Tools → Options.

Select Options from Tools in LibreOffice Main Menu — Click on Options

Here, inside the “User Data” section, add your name, address, email etc., if you prefer, but name is a must.

Enter User Data on the appropriate fields — Enter User Data

That's it. You are good to go.

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Working with Recording Changes

Now, let us take a look at how all of this works:

Locating Changes

First, when you add a new word to the document, it appears in a yellow text.

Changes are recorded in LibreOffice with Annotated Words — Changes are recorded in LibreOffice

As, you can see from the above screenshot, when a word is removed, it is not deleted from the document. Instead, it is marked with a strikeout annotation. When you add another word in its place, that also appears highlighted and underlined.

You can notice a small bar on the extreme left of the lines that include some kind of change, even if it is a small comma addition.

Knowing about the changes

Now that you have located the changes appearing to the document, what about the author who made the change?

LibreOffice also notes the author (user) who has made the change to a particular document. You can get this detail through several places.

Hover over the marked text, to know about that particular change. It will show the author, changed date and time.

Changes made by an author is highlighted by his name — Author of Changes

Or, you can click on the manage track changes button on the bottom toolbar, to get an overview of all changes as shown in the screenshot below:

Manage Changes window (Click to enlarge the image)

Accepting/Rejecting Changes

To accept or reject a particular change, first, click on that particular change.

Next, click on the Accept change button (with a tick mark) to accept it. Or use the Reject button (with a cross mark) to reject the change.

Accept and Reject Button in LibreOffice track Change toolbar — Accept and Reject Button (Click to enlarge the image)

If you accept a change, the text will be fixed and will change to black color in case of addition. If you are removing something, the highlighted word will be removed.

On the other hand, if you reject a change, the addition/deletion will be cancelled.

Similarly, you can accept/reject all the changes at once, using the Accept All/ Reject All buttons. It is placed adjacent to the individual accept and reject buttons on the toolbar.

Accept or Reject all changes at once — Accept or Reject All Changes

Another way to accept and reject changes is through the Manage Changes dialog box. Click on the Manage Changes button on the bottom toolbar, as described in the previous section.

Now, you can select a particular change and then use the bottom buttons for Accepting/Rejecting.

Accept or reject changes through the Manage Changes dialog box — Manage Changes through Dialog Box

Inserting Comments

You can either insert a comment at a random position, or add a comment to a particular change.

To add a comment on a place, click on that particular position (to bring the cursor there). Next, click on the Add Comment button on the bottom toolbar.

Position the cursor to the correct place and click on Add Comment button — Click on Add Comment Button (Click to enlarge the image)

This will open up a right sidebar while pointing out the place you will be adding the comment. Type the message there as shown below:

Enter the comments on the highlighted place — Enter Comment Text

You can click on the adjacent rectangle button to get several actions on that comment. Use the top “Comment” button, to hide/unhide the comments.

Similarly, you can click on a particular change, and then click on the “Insert Track Change Comment” button.

Click on Insert Track Change Comment button on the bottom toolbar — Track Change Comment (Click to enlarge the image)

It will look a bit different, but serves the same purpose. In the next dialog box, enter the comment. Now, click OK to save the comment.

Insereting Track Change Comment — Insert Track Change Comment (Click to enlarge the image)

You have now added a comment to that change.

So, when you head to the Manage Changes dialog box, you can see the comment right to the mentioned change. Pretty handy, right? Of course, one of the best open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office. You should not expect any less 😉

View Track Change Comments in Manage Changes dialog box — View Track Change Comment

Save a Version

While there is an auto-save feature to protect your document from a crash, there is no auto-versioning of documents.

So, once you have made some changes, you can save a version of it.

Go to File → Versions.

Go to Files and then Versions — File → Versions

Here, you can save the current version of the document.

Click on Save New Version button — Click on Save New Version

Insert a version comment to identify it easily, and then click OK.

Insert a version comment and then click OK — Insert Version Comment

You can now view multiple versions of the document by navigating to the same menu option. Instead of saving a new version, you can select the existing version and hit "Open" to access it.

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Filter Changes

LibreOffice provides a way to filter the changes based on author, time range, etc. This should help you find certain changes fast when there are lots of it.

First, hit the Manage Changes button to get to the dialog box where you see the changes. Here, go to the Filters Tab.

Filters Tab in Manage Changes Dialog Box — Filter based on Author

Next, you can set the criteria.

I have set to view the changes made by the author “It's FOSS”. So, when we go to the “List” tab, only changes made by author “It's FOSS” will be listed.

Only changes made by author It's FOSS is listed — Changes made by a particular Author

Compare with Original Document

Once you have completed collaborative editing, you can compare the changed document with the original one. This needs the original one to be saved separately.

So, click on the Compare button on the bottom toolbar.

Click on Compare button on the bottom toolbar — Click on Compare Button

Now, select the original file from the file chooser.

Select the file to compare using the file chooser and then click Open — Select the Document to Compare

This will give you a highlighted document with changes from the original, along with the Manage Changes dialog box.

Compared with the selected document — Changes compared

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This is useful, when one of the authors has modified a document without recording them.

Merge with Original

Once you have completed the changes, save the document.

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If you are planning to merge the collaboratively edited document into an original document, you should not accept changes on the editing document.

Once you have made all the changes, save it, without accepting the changes.

Now, open the original document in LibreOffice and go to Edit → Track Changes → Merge Document.

On LibreOffice main menu, select Edit. From there, select Merge Document under Track Changes option — Select Merge Documents option

From the file chooser, select the edited document, and click Open.

Open Edited document from the list to merge to the original document — Open Edited Document to Merge

On the next screen, changes to the original document will be listed, along with a “Manage Changes” dialog box. Click on “Accept All” and the original document will be merged with the changes.

Accept All Changes to merge — Accept All Changes to Merge

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Wrapping Up

LibreOffice is a feature-packed document suite. You can do all sorts of things when compared to the proprietary alternatives.

You can also explore more LibreOffice tips to use it more effectively.

However, many users fail to find/know how to use a certain feature. With this article, I hope, you can now quickly track changes and versions of your document for a good collaborative editing experience.

💬 What is your favorite part of the LibreOffice Writer editing experience? Any other feature that you want to highlight? Share all about it in the comments below.