Change tracking formatting

moldstadt · September 20, 2022, 12:59pm

After upgrading to LibreOffice 7.4, I noticed that if I insert rows in a table, with change tracking on, that they highlight in light blue. Switching back to 7.3, the same behaviour continues.

Is there a way to change the formatting of inserted rows?

Similarly, I am also seeing some inserted text in green with a double underline. Hovering on it shows that it is being detected as “Moved (insertion)” even though it is just the same text as elsewhere in another cell of the table.

It there a way to change the formatting of moved text?

ajlittoz · September 20, 2022, 1:15pm

Not sure if this is what you’re looking for: changes colours can be customised in Tools>Options, LibreOffice Writer>Changes

EDIT 2022/09/29
Still not understanding your goal. Tools>Options, LO Writer>Changes` is where change display settings are located.

There are 2 “text” situations:

insertion
deletion

The move context is special combined case of above when you drag-and-drop or cut-then-paste some text.

There is also an “attribute context” highlighting change in formatting.

Tables are not specifically tracked. Their structure (rows and columns) is not tagged when it changes, apart from a small vertical line in the margin (Lines changed in the setting dialog). Only cell text will be highlighted.

The Lines changed indicator is a generic one, calling for attention on any change.

Please clarify your goal.

moldstadt · September 28, 2022, 7:00pm

Hello @ajlittoz.

I am familiar with those settings, but there are no settings for changing the highlight of added rows in tables, or moved text.

Hrbrgr · September 28, 2022, 7:09pm

Do you have possibly change tracking enabled?

Recording and Displaying Changes

Accepting or Rejecting Changes

moldstadt · September 29, 2022, 3:41pm

Yes. I want it on. Please read the original question and look at the screenshots.

The issue is that there is no way to configure these new types of changes that were not there in an older version of LibreOffice.

moldstadt · September 29, 2022, 4:10pm

Another change I’ve noticed, that doesn’t seem to have a way to configure it, is when numbering is changed. It changes the font to light blue and shows a number in square brackets which seems to be a representation of what it previously was. (Sometimes the old number is also incorrect)

This is what it looks like:

After accepting the changes, the numbering changes are still shown:

I need to switch off “Show changes” and switch it back on again to get rid of the blue numbering.

ajlittoz · September 29, 2022, 4:46pm

This might be a bug. The situation is complex because it involves a paragraph style (Heading n) with an associated list style (internal Tools>Chapter Numbering). You should file a bug report with a sample file and ste-by-step instruction to reproduce the behaviour.

moldstadt · September 30, 2022, 7:15pm

Hello @ajlittoz,

I have submitted a bug, even though this seems to be more of an extra or missing feature. Either it should have ways to configure the formatting for the new change tracking types, or they shouldn’t be there.

I only saw your edited comment today. Did you make that edit before or after I added the screenshots? Do you still not see/understand the issue?

If moving was treated as a deletion and insert, the old text should have been in red and the new text highlighted with green. (no green text with strikethrough or underline).

Tables seem to be tracked now. The new rows added to tables are highlighted in blue (see screenshot above).

moldstadt · September 30, 2022, 8:05pm

I did some more testing and found the following behaviour by completely uninstalling LibreOffice and deleting user settings, and then testing a few different versions of LibreOffice that I had previously downloaded:

LibreOffice 7.2.7:
Works as expected.

LibreOffice 7.3.6:
Moved text is green with double strikethrough and double underline.
New rows in table are highlighted in blue.
Inserted numbered headings CORRECTLY DON’T change the colour to light blue and CORRECTLY DON’T have the original number in square brackets.

LibreOffice 7.4.0:
Moved text is green with double strikethrough and double underline.
New rows in table are highlighted in blue.
Inserted numbered headings change the colour to light blue and have the original number in square brackets.

LibreOffice 7.4.1:
Moved text is CORRECTLY NOT green with double strikethrough and double underline.
New rows in table are highlighted in blue.
Inserted numbered headings change the colour to light blue and have the original number in square brackets.

ajlittoz · October 1, 2022, 8:10am

After your edit.
I understand your wish to customise the appearance but I don’t see why. How is this important for you? What is the specific information you want to highlight through the changes in configuration?

moldstadt · October 3, 2022, 5:52pm

Hello @ajlittoz,

There is no “specific information I want to highlight through the changes in configuration.” It’s the new change tracking features that I don’t want to see. (or at least have a way of configuring them like the old ones)

By default, all the above changes are shown when I show tracked changes. The old changes (insertions, deletions, changed attributes and changed lines) were all configurable in the settings and worked well.

The new changes in LO 7.3 and 7.4 (moved text, inserted rows in tables and numbering changes) are not configurable.

I use the change tracking for keeping minutes. After making changes I would create a PDF with the changes shown. It is easy to see what was resolved/planned in the latest minutes.

If I insert a numbered heading near the beginning of the document, all the numbering below it is now changed, so the minutes are littered with numbering changes that make them messy. It would be nice to be able to switch that off, as you can do with other tracked changes.

Similarly, for my purposes, it would be better to not show moved text in a different color and style. Just show deleted and inserted text in the colors I have configured. Or at least make this configurable, like the old tracked changes.

The highlight for inserted table rows is almost the same color as when I select a table row, and also clashes with the highlight I have configured for inserted text. I can live with this one but would prefer if there was a way to configure it like the old change tracking settings.

In LO 7.4.1 the moved text changes are back to the way they used to be (just a delete and an insert) I guess I’m not the only person who didn’t like it that way (without being configurable).

TLDR; I need to be able to switch off showing the changed paragraph numbering changes. I would like to be able to configure these new tracked changes features in the same way as I can configure the older tracked changes features).

Hecatte · April 16, 2024, 1:13pm

In 2024 I would also be interested in switching off showing the changed paragraph numbering changes. By any chance, do you still have the link of the bug report you opened back in September 2022 ?

Mr_Macchiato · April 25, 2024, 10:13am

Only way I can find to get rid of the brackets is to select affected paragraphs and CTRL+M (clear direct formatting) with track changes on. This is painful when I have to do the whole document.

Please!.. we definitely need a way to turn tracking changes to paragraph numbering OFF. This feature is hard to control and very frustrating to use when working with track changes. Often in my case adding one extra paragraph will lead to numbering throughout the document changing with everything now bracketed and having no easy way to get rid of the bracketed numbers. Even undo doesn’t remove them. Of course I can turn show track changes off, but I wanted other changes visible, just numbering changes not visible.