GroupDocs Conversion docx and track changes

GroupDocs.Conversion Product Family
1

Hi all,


We have an embedded PDF converter solution based around the GroupDocs Convert .Net library.

Here is the use case in question (note: our test case was done on a Mac using the latest MS Office for Mac preview - I haven’t confirmed, but rather suspect, that Word on Windows would behave the same):

User creates MS Word .docx file with “Track Changes” on, but with ‘No Markup’ selected. Basically, this hides the full redline markup in Word - on the screen, the document appears as if all changes have been accepted, even if the changes are still awaiting final approval. User saves a draft of the document.

When we send the resulting .docx file to our converter service, to convert to PDF, it renders the document with full markup displayed (comment annotations, user/time stamps, etc). This is actually not what we want in this case - we wish for the converted doc to match as exactly as possible the version on the users’s screen, in the case where they have selected ‘No Markup’.

Is this possible in the .NET library e.g. via a configuration option?

Thanks in advance,

David Odmark
CTO, greenlight.guru


2

Hello David,


Thank you for the request. Sorry but currently GroupDocs.Conversion doesn’t supports such feature.

The good news - we works on the brand new GroupDocs.Conversion and we will investigate such features, if adding of such feature will be possible we add it to our roadmap for future implementation.

Bad news - we can’t provide exact date for when it will be ready because as you know development of the new products can take more time then planed.

If you will have more questions please feel free to contact us.
3

Thanks for your reply, Pavel.


Without trying to pin you down on an “exact date”, can you give me a general idea of the planned timeframe? This is actually kind of a big deal for us, given how we use GD.Conversion in our app – we need to come up with a workaround solution for our customers pretty quickly, and would like to know whether or not the workaround will need to be in force for weeks/months/years etc. In the worst case, it could cause us to seek another conversion library.

FWIW, my in-house domain expert tells me that Adobe Acrobat does follow the users’s visual settings when it converts Word Docs with tracking on. Seems to me that it’s a sane default to convert the document to the same document representation that would show in a users’s app…

Anyway, thanks again.

Cheers,

-David Odmark
CTO, greenlight.guru
4

Hello David,


Thank you for coming back. Sorry but as I said earlier we can’t provide estimate date for the new Conversion release. But if you can share with me the original document which you convert I will be able to check it and probably (not sure for 100%) will find a workaround for you.

Thank you.
5

Hi Pavel,


I totally get it, no worries. We appreciate the offer to look into it further.

I’ve attached a zip file with screenshots of the way that the document looks in Word with the ‘All Markup’ and ‘No Markup’ option selected, as well the original document. Basically, if a user has saved the document with ‘No Markup’ selected, we want the PDF to look just like that, even if there is hidden markup embedded in the document.

Thanks again for all of your help!

Cheers,

-David Odmark
CTO, greenlight.guru
6

Hello David,


Thank you for understanding and for the example document. I have checked it and converted your example document to the pdf (using latest version of the converter) and I get such pdf (on left side pdf , on right side original docx). They almost the same except some styles for the vertical lines (black in original and red in the pdf). Since that could you please share with me a screenshot of how converted documents looks when you converted it that I can see what’s wrong on your side.

Thank you.

7

Actually, the converted document looks exactly the same to us, and that is exactly the issue: when the user has saved the document with ‘No Markup’ (as in this screenshot), The converted pdf document still shows all of the markup (as in this screenshot).


We want the converted document to resemble the doc exactly as it appears in Word i.e. the first screenshot.

Cheers,

-David Odmark
CTO, greenlight.guru

8
Hello David,

Thank you for posting and for using GroupDocs.Conversion.

We reviewed your information and looks like you just hided the markup, bit it still persists in the document. That's why you can see it in the converted document. To save document without markup you can review this documentation .

We tried to use your scenario and after saving the document without markup, we have got .pdf document without markup, as you can see on the screenshot. Could you please try to save the document without markup with new name for it and test conversion again?

If you will have more questions please feel free to contact us.

Best regards
Evgen Efimov

http://groupdocs.com
Your Document Collaboration APIs
Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+

9

I apologize, I fear I haven’t done a very good job describing our requirements.


The application from which we use the GroupDocs convert tool is a document management system that allows users to upload “editable” documents, which are very typically MS Word files. Often, these files require document markup - it is the very nature of what we do.

We use GroupDocs to automatically convert these uploaded documents to PDF form as a visual reference of the source document – however, in some cases, it should reflect the source document as it exists in the process of being revised, without necessarily revealing those revisions. What we would like to see is the option (or really, the default) that if the user has uploaded a document containing markup, but has saved the document with the ‘No Markup’ option selected in Word, then the resulting PDF file does not actually show the markup.

In other words, we really just want the PDF rendered from a Word document to precisely reflect the document exactly as it appears in Word when it was saved. In Word, the ‘No Markup’ option hides the Markup, but does not eliminate it, allowing subsequent users to go back and view it and either accept or reject it. But it does signal the intent that the markup should not render in the view.

I have not tested this myself, but I’m given to understand that the Adobe PDF converter works this way, and to me, at least, it makes sense – if I save a Word Doc with ‘No Markup’ selected, it means I don’t want to see the markup (not that I don’t want to keep the markup). If I then convert this document to some other format, it’d be nice if I at least had the option to render the view with that viewing preference respected, without having to actually eliminate the markup from the original source document.

I hope this clarifies what we are looking for. Thanks again for your willingness to work with us on this and at least hear us out!

Cheers,

-David Odmark
greenlight.guru

10

Hello David,


Thank you for the clarification and use case description.

As we said earlier this feature will be added to the new Conversion product and we promised to suggest a temporary workaround. The only thing that we can suggest to you - the solution that Evgen has described in the post above. Yes, we understand that this solution doesn’t quite fit and convenient but in this time it’s the only thing that we can offer.

Sorry for the inconvenience.
11

Is there an update to this feature?

12

Hello,


Thank you for the request. Yes, the new Conversion will be released soon.

Best regards.
13

Awesome. Do you have an estimated release date? Thank you.

14

Hi again,


Sorry but I can;t share any estimate, but it will be in this month.

Best regards.
15

Just checking to see if the release has happened.


Regards
Jason
16

Hi Jason,


Thank you for asking. Unfortunately not yet, we wait for the important fix in the 3rd party library.

I will keep you updated about the release status.

Best regards.
17

Hello,


I am the author of the original post. We have created a test service utilizing the latest version of GroupDocs for .Net (v. 3.2.0), and it appears as if the library still behaves as it always has w.r.t. converting Word docs with markup to PDF. When we covert a document with markup, the markup shows in the resulting PDF regardless of whether or not the document has been saved with the ‘hide markup’ option chosen.

We were given to understand that this was going to be addressed in some way (at least as an API option) in a future release, of which there have now been several since the original issue was raised more than a year ago.

Can anyone give me any more information/status about this?

Regards,

David Odmark | CTO
greenlight.guru
david.odmark@greenlight.guru

18

Hi David,

Thank you for coming back .

We are sorry to hear that you are facing such issue.In recent past we have launched our Next Generation API’s (3.0.0 to onward) which are UI-less document rendering API’s in which object oriented approach has been implemented in a very simplified way. In initial releases we are struggling to provide all basic and core functionalities in our API.
We apologize for the delays.Your issue is not resolved due to process of Stabilizing the core functionalities and providing the bug free conversions features in every upcoming releases. We hope your issue is going to resolve in next upcoming release. I am also creating ticket on priority basis to product team for your issue resolution. This will be logged in in our issue tracking system and once its resolved or we get any update from product team we will update you here immediately.

Thank you for your patience.

Warm Regards,

19

Hi David,

Good Day,

We got information from product team that your mentioned feature (Show Markup) is under process and will be available in next release of GroupDocs.Conversion 3.4.0 which will be released in mid of July 2016. Once its released for public download we will update you here.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Warm Regards,