This is the “shortcut” sequence of keys in order to get the list of changes in a text document in OpenOffice.org. It works very nicely with MS-Word documents, a useful feature when you are obliged to exchange work with colleagues, mentors, etc. who only use the proprietary word processor.

IMHO, the only problem is the way the list of changes is shown to the end-user in OpenOffice.org: as in other word processor software, changes are underlined in a different color for each contributor and a small hint tells you what happened to the hovered block of text, who did it and when; unlike other word processors, you can’t accept/refuse any change by right-clicking on it (you have to do it from the separate window). I do not find this intuitive and, sometimes, annoying …

Although I really appreciate the list of all the changes (notably for bulk acceptance/refusal), I think the end-user should also have the opportunity to accept/reject a change, once at a time, with a right-click of the mouse or any other means (keyboard shortcut e.g.). This is, I think, especially important when you are not reviewing the last version of a document, when a reviewer ask questions in the text (you can’t neither accept neither reject, you have to manually edit the text) or when you still do some modifications to modified text.

Talking about modifications of modified text, OpenOffice.org doesn’t update the list of changes when you modify your text while this list is open. You have to close the list and then re-open it to see your new changes.

My “dream functionality” would be that, next to the actual list of changes, the end-user would be able to:

• either right-click to obtain a pop-up menu showing the accept and reject options
• either use two keyboard shortcuts: one for acceptance of the modification under the cursor

I already looked for such add-on on the web, without success. If anyone finds something interesting, let me know …

• Open Source