Version number for Word document, automated by VCS

[lblythen]

I work in a multi-editor environment, on documents that must be edited by various versions of Word (2007 - 2013). On most documents we use a version number (e.g. 1.3), which we include:

- in a standard filename pattern, e.g. My document v1.3.docx


- as a custom text property (Version) among the document's Properties
- on the title page,where it's inserted from the custom Version property
- in some cases, in footers (where again it's inserted from Version).

This versioning is manual and relies on good cooperative habits, which causes us problems when those habits break down: versions of the doc get out of sync.

I'd rather use a proper version control system (git, for example), have it impose each version number upon us, and incorporate that number into the document's Version property and filename (using VBA or whatever).

Has anyone done this successfully, and if so how?

[macropod]

FWIW, you may be over-managing the issue. You could, for example, use just the filename, coupled with a FILENAME field in the header and/or footer. That would display 'My document v1.3.docx' and would update anytime the document is printed or a print preview is done. A Document_Open macro in the document's template could also be used to update the field anytime the document is opened, without triggering the alerts that a macro in the document itself might do.

[lblythen]

Thanks Paul. You may be right, but our aim is to offload versioning onto a VCS and the version number has primacy: we want to assemble the filename in part from it, not extract the version number from the filename.

As background: the VCS goal is important to us. It costs us dearly whenever people squirrel away a document, edit it as a personal copy and email it around: by the time it re-enters the pool of collaborators it's wildly out of sync with other edits, often its filename has changed and no longer matches its cover-page title, its Version property hasn't been updated, and untraceable copies remain scattered from hell to breakfast.

It's a sloppy approach which I know we documenters tolerate, with the increasingly weak excuse that VCS isn't as flexible with binary documents as it is with text. I also know that programmers who defy a VCS regime are howled by their peers into toeing the line.

[macropod]

OK, but until you get your VCS implemented and, more importantly, enforced, there's nothing you can do safeguard against "people squirrel away a document, edit it as a personal copy and email it around". How your versioning will be controlled by a VCS really depends on how that system works.

Since you're using Office, you might consider using SharePoint (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...010021576.aspx). It may not be the best VCS out there, but it's probably the best supported.

[lblythen]

Originally Posted by macropod

OK, but until you get your VCS implemented and, more importantly, enforced, there's nothing you can do safeguard against "people squirrel away a document, edit it as a personal copy and email it around". How your versioning will be controlled by a VCS really depends on how that system works.

Yes, you're dead-right.


Thanks for the SharePoint recommendation. The company used it widely until several years ago but no longer does so - I don't know why.