Slightly OT: tracking using LaTeX

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Sun, 6 Feb 2005, Ed Hill wrote:

> On Sun, 2005-02-06 at 08:49 -0800, Globe Trotter wrote:
>> Dear all,
>>
>> In my huge effort to move everyone away from anything remotely smelling
>> Windoze-y, I am often told that some people prefer using horrible, awful Word
>> (whether from the bloated Office or from Star Office) even when having to do
>> complicated equations and mathematical formulae (over LaTeX) because it
>> provides for tracking of changes to a document. I personally don't care about
>> tracking, but I am perhaps not that old and wise. Well, anyway, does anyone
>> know if there is a program which can track changes in a document in LaTeX? It
>> can not be that different to set up, using a combination of diffs on the old
>> and the new file, and then including it during the processing by striking out
>> the old and retaining the new in a different color/type.
>
>
> Hi "Globe Trotter",
>
> LaTeX files are plain text files and readily lend themselves to storage
> and tracking within a source management system such as CVS, Subversion,
> etc.  Many individuals and development groups keep their LaTeX files
> within CVS.

One (of many) advantages to this arrangement is that when changes are kept 
with a Word file, users with plain-text editors can see the changes. 
This is not always desirable, but it is very easy to forget to save a 
clean copy before shipping it out.

There are LaTeX macro packages to do redlining (for when you need to have 
the formatted document show the changes), but I can't point to one 
offhand.

-- 
 		Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs