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Show HN: Version Control for Microsoft Word

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Re: Show HN: Version Control for Microsoft Word

#41

Post by IanWhalen »

brazzledazzle wrote: post #39
IanWhalen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The addition of tags/versions is something that I would kill for in Google Docs. It would make life so much easier in my current role if we had the ability to tag a version so that you can easily see a diff between that specific, tagged version and the current version (rather than just seeing diffs over time as it is currently implemented).

There's an add-on you can get in whatever marketplace they have. But I hate using those because it's not clear to me what these third parties can or can't see. I found it when I realized that despite Google storing extensive change history they hardly do anything with it.

I feel like I've searched pretty extensively but not found such an add-on. If you can remember the name and link it here that would be awesome.

Re: Show HN: Version Control for Microsoft Word

#45

Post by ellius »

torrent-of-ions wrote: post #20

How big do you think the intersection is of people who can use git and people who want to use Microsoft Word?

I could recommend this for something like bank compliance. We're stuck with Word and have a largely non-technical staff, but could dramatically improve our performance if our documents were version controlled. If I were OP I would look banks as a launch point.

Re: Show HN: Version Control for Microsoft Word

#47

Post by tmaly »

If you had a version that companies could install on a private internal network, you could easily charge between $100 and $1000 a month for this.

I work in legal and compliance technology, and it is very important to keep documents secured internally if the have confidential information.

Re: Show HN: Version Control for Microsoft Word

#49

Post by TrickyRick »

titanix2 wrote: post #30
torrent-of-ions wrote: post #20

How big do you think the intersection is of people who can use git and people who want to use Microsoft Word?

It includes at least me :) I switched to Latex for writing my second master thesis because I wanted to use version control but Word is far more easier to deal with when the document include unicode character outside the BMP. So I really wanted Word + git from that time. Also when collaborating for writing a paper with Word, version control can be a huge help.

Why not use something like Google docs or office 365 then?

Re: Show HN: Version Control for Microsoft Word

#50

Post by macspoofing »

runako wrote: post #35

Congratulations on your launch! Other folks have provided a bunch of commentary on the validity of your idea, so I won't address that. BUT: if this is a good idea, your pricing is far too low for a niche product like this. $10 (or 10 quid) is too low a monthly fee for pretty much any product marketed as a business product. 10 per seat per month is probably also too low, but would be a better starting point. Likely ob…

I would be careful with raising pricing. It is a very specialized product that requires changing the way people work with their documents today - meaning you need to educate the users on a) why they need this over the regular document version control in something like Sharepoint b) educate them on how to actually use it and c) define how this product fits into existing document management systems and workflows.

It's hard enough to train people to use existing baseline document management systems and not simply email these things around.

Also, the fact that you need to use your cloud service is a red-flag for certain clients.

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