Does anyone know if there is a way, from a macro, to export a .pdf of a spreadsheet that shows tracked changes as annotations?
I just tried to find a way to do this without a macro, to see if the functionality exists in Calc.
I used Edit>Track Changes>Compare Document…
Then I used File>Eport as PDF… and made sure “Comments as PDF annotations” was checked. But now, when I open the generated PDF, I don’t see the changes illustrated.
Change tracks are not comments, so no, they are not exported by that setting. I think it’s not possible. I also wonder how a series of changes in one cell, or deleted rows and all their deleted cells should be represented in a two-dimensional grid in a PDF.
Those are fair questions. I’m not really looking to track dramatic changes like that to the sheet. We’re working with a protected sheet, and I’m just looking to track changes to values in cells. Truth be told, I was a little surprised that calc had change tracking available. But it does. And you can delete entire rows or columns, which puts in a red line that, if you hover the mouse over it, will show the details of the change presented like a comment. And I’m thinking that should be translatable to a .pdf file. I’m also hopeful that, even if it isn’t built into the export GUI, there’s a way to do it by using the right parameters in .storeToURL.
But it would be fair to point out that, if they put the functionality of exporting change tracking in for limited cases, and they didn’t put it in for all cases, it would probably be reported in the bug tracker.
Out of curiousity, I recorded a macro of exporting a sheet to .pdf with exporting comments enabled, and to my surprise, I didn’t see anything that looked to me like it had anything to do with exporting comments. Perhaps someone else can spot it and point it out.
dim args1(2) as new com.sun.star.beans.PropertyValue
args1(0).Name = "URL"
args1(0).Value = "file:///C:/Users/Aaron/Desktop/New%20OpenDocument%20Spreadsheet.pdf"
args1(1).Name = "FilterName"
args1(1).Value = "calc_pdf_Export"
args1(2).Name = "FilterData"
args1(2).Value = Array(Array("UseLosslessCompression",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Quality",0,75,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ReduceImageResolution",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("MaxImageResolution",0,150,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("UseTaggedPDF",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SelectPdfVersion",0,0,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("PDFUACompliance",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ExportNotes",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ViewPDFAfterExport",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ExportBookmarks",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SinglePageSheets",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("OpenBookmarkLevels",0,-1,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("UseTransitionEffects",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("IsSkipEmptyPages",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ExportPlaceholders",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("IsAddStream",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ExportFormFields",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("FormsType",0,0,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("AllowDuplicateFieldNames",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("HideViewerToolbar",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("HideViewerMenubar",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("HideViewerWindowControls",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ResizeWindowToInitialPage",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("CenterWindow",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("OpenInFullScreenMode",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("DisplayPDFDocumentTitle",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("InitialView",0,0,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Magnification",0,0,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Zoom",0,100,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("PageLayout",0,0,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("FirstPageOnLeft",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("InitialPage",0,1,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Printing",0,2,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Changes",0,4,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("EnableCopyingOfContent",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("EnableTextAccessForAccessibilityTools",0,true,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ExportLinksRelativeFsys",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("PDFViewSelection",0,1,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ConvertOOoTargetToPDFTarget",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("ExportBookmarksToPDFDestination",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignPDF",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("_OkButtonString",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Watermark",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("EncryptFile",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("PreparedPasswords",0,,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("RestrictPermissions",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("PreparedPermissionPassword",0,Array(),com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("Selection",0,,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignatureLocation",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignatureReason",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignatureContactInfo",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignaturePassword",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignatureCertificate",0,,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("SignatureTSA",0,"",com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE),Array("UseReferenceXObject",0,false,com.sun.star.beans.PropertyState.DIRECT_VALUE))
dispatcher.executeDispatch(document, ".uno:ExportToPDF", "", 0, args1())
I expected to find it in the “FilterData” value, but to my surprise, the find function in the Basic editor didn’t find “comment” anywhere in the macro.
[erAck: edited to make that a proper code block using ```, see This is the guide - How to use the Ask site? - #6 by erAck]
"ExportNotes"
Great! Thanks for the spotting it, and thanks for correcting my code block formatting.
Now if I could just guess at what export setting name would allow for exporting change tracking…
That archived PDF is an export of the original OpenOffice.org wiki article. Most if not all of the filter properties are still applicable to LibreOffice. However, the https://www.openoffice.org/api/docs/common/ref/com/sun/star/... references should also be looked up by name (service,interface,property name) on the LibreOffice API reference page for a better overview and possibly reworked documentation and added optional properties and interfaces.