Printing tracked changes/comments

[gwhite]

I'm exploring the Track Changes feature of Oxygen Author. I want tracked changes to not only print in PDF but to retain the color they have in the Editor, or be marked by any color that sets off the deletion/insertion from the rest of the text. I know how to change the background color and/or font color of a DITA element like <draft-comment> in the PDF transformation. Is there a way to make a similar change to what, when I change to Text mode in the Author editor, I see is tagged like so:

Code: Select all

<?oxy_insert_start author="gwhite" timestamp="20170816T150332-0500"?>

    Here is a change made to a paragraph in a topic.<?oxy_insert_end?>

Thanks,
Gary

[Radu]

Hi Gary,

If you are using Oxygen 18.1 or 19.0 and one of the the DITA Open Toolkits bundled with it, in the transformation scenario you are using to publish the DITA Map to PDF there is now a new parameter in the "Parameters" list called show.changes.and.comments which can be enabled in order to have the track changes and comments visible in the PDF. They will be there with a fixed color so they will not obey the same colors shown in the Author editing mode for them. Actually the colors shown in the Author visual editing mode are automatically assigned so it's possible that in one opened document there is a color used for a certain author and in another opened document there is another color used for the same author.

Regards,
Radu

[gwhite]

Thanks, Radu.

When I print to PDF now, new text marked with track-changes background color in the Oxygen editor prints, but not with highlighted background, thus it isn't demarcated from pre-existing text. We are on an older version of DITA-OT (1.65 I think). Are you saying if we upgrade to DITA 2.0, the highlight color will be visible in PDF?

Gary

[gwhite]

I should have said, DITA-OT 2.0, not DITA 2.0...

--gw

[Radu]

Hi Gary,

As I previously said, using Oxygen 18.1 or 19.0 with the DITA Open Toolkits bundled with them and setting that specific show.changes.and.comments parameter I mentioned, you should have insertions, deletions and comments highlighted in the PDF document.
It looks something like this:

files/change-tracking-showing.png

If you are using an external DITA Open Toolkit you can try to install this plugin in it:
https://github.com/oxygenxml/dita-classic-pdf-review
I tested the plugin with DITA OT 1.8 and 2.x so it might not work with an older DITA OT version.

Regards,
Radu

[gwhite]

Thanks very much, Radu, I'll try it. This is yet another incentive, however, to my team's upgrading to 2.0!

Gary

[Eddie]

Hello,

With regard to the parameter show.changes.and.comments, I'd like to confirm if the PDF I generate is as it should be. (I can't find a description of how the output should look apart from the image posted by Radu above.)

1. Changes at map level are not shown in the table of contents. (This is something we would really like to have.)
2. Added whole topics are included but not marked.
3. Deleted whole topics are not included.
4. Added elements are included and marked (in my case in blue text) (only checked with p).
5. Added images are included but not marked.
6. Deleted elements are not included.
7. Added text in an element is included and marked (in my case in blue text).
8. Deleted text in an element is included and marked (in my case in red text with a strikethrough).
9. Text highlighted in Oxygen is highlighted in PDF.

Is the above output correct?

Cheers,
Eddie

[Radu]

Hi Eddie,

Thanks for the detailed analysis. Indeed showing change tracking in PDFs has its limitations. I will add an internal issue and see what we can do about this
Please see some comments below:

1. Changes at map level are not shown in the table of contents. (This is something we would really like to have.)

What kind of changes?

2. Added whole topics are included but not marked.
3. Deleted whole topics are not included.

You mean topicrefs added or removed in the DITA Map, right? How would you like to see them? Maybe highlighted in the table of contents?

4. Added elements are included and marked (in my case in blue text) (only checked with p).

Yes

5. Added images are included but not marked.

There should be something like a [no] number after the image, number which when clicked should take you to a footnote. No other visual indicator though...
How would you suggest a better handling of inserted images should look like?

6. Deleted elements are not included.

They should, might depend on what element you deleted though. I tested by deleting a bold element containing some text.

7. Added text in an element is included and marked (in my case in blue text).
8. Deleted text in an element is included and marked (in my case in red text with a strikethrough).
9. Text highlighted in Oxygen is highlighted in PDF.

Yes.

Regards,
Radu

[Eddie]

Hello Radu,

Thanks again for the replies.

1. Changes at map level are not shown in the table of contents.
→ What kind of changes?

Basically, added and deleted topic references, so that you can look at the TOC and tell that a topic reference has been added/changed/deleted.
Also, changes to the structure of the map (re-ordering, adding/rearranging parts, etc.)

2. Added whole topics are included but not marked.
3. Deleted whole topics are not included.
→ You mean topicrefs added or removed in the DITA Map, right? How would you like to see them? Maybe highlighted in the table of contents?

Sorry, I should have made it clear that only 1. referred to map changes.
If a topic has been added, we'd like some indication in the body of the manual (like a sidebar). I must admit I'm not sure what the best way to show a deleted topic would be. Strikethrough the whole topic, maybe.

5. Added images are included but not marked.
→ There should be something like a [no] number after the image, number which when clicked should take you to a footnote.
→ No other visual indicator though...
→ How would you suggest a better handling of inserted images should look like?

I did a little more checking with images. It seems that:
If an image inserted just using an image element is added, it is shown without any indication (no footnote number).
If an image inserted just using an image element is deleted, it is deleted without any indication.
If an image inserted using a fig element is added, it is shown with a footnote number. Some other visual indicator such as a sidebar would be useful.
If an image inserted using a fig element is deleted, it is shown as a deleted text reference (red text with strikethrough, which is fine).
Would it be possible to have images inserted just using an image element handled in the same way as images inserted using a fig element?

6. Deleted elements are not included.
They should, might depend on what element you deleted though. I tested by deleting a bold element containing some text.

As you say, it seems to depend on the element. I first tried with p elements, and they are deleted without any indication. I've since also tried with title, li and ph, and these are shown in red text with strikethrough.

[Radu]

Hi,

Thanks for the extra info, I will double check everything and try to come up with some fixes, at least for some of the situations.

Regards,
Radu

[shilpah123]

Hi Radu,
I checked this feature and was able to see the inserted and deleted content data in the PDF. But, to find out what was modified, I need to scroll through the pages in PDF to find the exact location. Is there a way for these changes to show up in Call outs/Comments pop-up in PDF? This will greatly help to identify the changes made in the document. Thanks.

[Radu]

Hi,

If you use Oxygen 21.1 with our "DITA Map PDF - based on HTML5 & CSS" transformation scenario, by default track changes are presented as PDF sticky notes. We do not have this alternative for the classic XSL-FO based PDF.

Regards,
Radu