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Re: Total Heresy: CVS & Windows MS Office Docs


From: Doug Lee
Subject: Re: Total Heresy: CVS & Windows MS Office Docs
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:17:35 -0400
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.6i

Re: managing Office files in CVS:

The short answer is yes, but the long answer is no. <grin>  If I
understand your interest correctly, the answer is definitely no.
Details follow.

Yes, you can store Office files in CVS and get them back out, but you
must tell CVS that they are binary files (-kb on add).  You can not
merge versions, get diffs, or pretty much do anything else except
checkin and checkout.  Furthermore, CVS will consume vast quantities
of space storing many versions of an Office file because it has no
efficient way of generating deltas between them, and Office files tend
to change dramatically throughout for even small changes in content,
in my experience.

If you just want to version documents, check out the built-in ability
of Office applications to maintain revisions within a single file.  If
you're just trying to include Office documents alongside another
project that fits better with CVS, you may find CVS's support
sufficient (I do that much myself).  But if you want true version
control of Office files outside of Office's own support, CVS won't fit
the bill.

On Mon, Aug 30, 2004 at 01:56:03PM -0700, Tennis Smith wrote:
> Can cvs be used for change management on Windows  Office (e.g. Word/Excel)
> documents?  Put another way, can these documents deal with having cvs
> updating them in the repository?
> 
> --
> Remove "-remove-to-reply" to respond to my  email address directly.
> 
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-- 
Doug Lee           address@hidden        http://www.dlee.org
Bartimaeus Group   address@hidden   http://www.bartsite.com
"Our chief want in life is somebody who will make us do what
we can. {Ralph Waldo Emerson}




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