"Dennis E. Hamilton" <> wrote on 09/06/2011 09:45:16 AM: >
> See Rob's explanation if that makes more sense. >
> At this point in the life of ODF, there is no way that the ODF TC
> can undertake define when two ODF representations are for the same documents.
> We can start with Canonical XML [1]. From there we could easily define canonicalization of inter-document references, e.g., styles. We could define canonical ordering of items in ZIP, etc. So there are some things we could define. But it is not clear how far up the semantic chain we would take it. For example, there is some freedom where we put style definitions. Is that a "real" difference? It is if we define it to be. I wouldn't be too concerned about app-to-app rendering differences. That is a different problem. But if doc 1 has a blue rectangle and doc 2 has a green oval, then the docs are different, even if some screwed up app fails to render them correctly. This is true even if the spec doesn't even define how they should be rendered. [1]: http://www.w3.org/TR/xml-c14n
> And there are comparison tools that work at the document (not XML
> level). OpenOffice.org has one built in. They've been in all
> flavors of Microsoft Office for years. (I imagine they might even
> compare a .doc and a .docx, who knows?!). They make it look like
> one was produced from the other (user choice) by change tracking.
> Imagine that! > > - Dennis > >
