Versions and restoring

You don’t have to remember to save versions. Colletta keeps them for every document as you work, so you can look back at an earlier draft, see what changed, and bring it back if you need to. Open History in the document header, or in the More menu on smaller screens.

People who can edit. History, named versions and Who wrote what are for people who can edit the document. People who can only view don’t see the History button, but they do see what changed since their last visit.

Automatic versions

A version is saved whenever the text has changed and then nobody has edited for 10 minutes, and once an hour during long sessions. Every version is kept for a week. After that Colletta keeps one a day, and after 90 days one a week.

Save a named version

Name a version when you reach a point worth coming back to. Choose Save version in the document’s More menu (…) and give it a name, such as “Sent for review”. You can also name or rename any version from the version viewer.

Automatic cleanup never removes a named version. Someone with Full access to the document can still delete it, and if you clear a version’s name, cleanup treats it like any other version again. Deleting the document for good also removes its versions.

Look at an earlier version

Click a version in the History panel. The version viewer shows its text, compared with the current text: lines only in the older text and lines only in the newer one are marked, with a count at the top. Press Escape or Close to go back.

Compare any two versions

Use Compare with in the version viewer to choose what the open version is compared with:

• The current text, the default.
• Any other version in the list, by name or time. The comparison always reads from the older version to the newer one, whichever you opened first, and the words name both, such as “only in Oct 20, 2:04 PM”.
• Nothing (show this version), to read the version on its own.

Restore a version

In the version viewer, choose Restore. The current text is saved as a version first, so you can return to it, and then everyone with the document open sees the text change. Changed your mind? Use undo: the whole restore is a single undo step.

See what changed since your last visit

When you open a document that other people changed while you were away, a bar under the header says who changed it and when you were last here. Everyone who can open the document sees it, viewers included. It covers only other people’s changes, and goes back at most 30 days. Choose Show changes to mark the new text, then Next change and Previous change to step through it. Each change says who made it and when, on hover or with Alt+F1. Dismiss hides the bar.

Deleted text can’t be marked, because it’s no longer there. People who can edit can see what was removed by opening History and comparing the version from your last visit with the current text.

Your last visit is kept on the server, so this works across your devices.

See who wrote what

In the History panel, turn on Who wrote what. Each author’s text gets a color, with a legend, and the panel shows who wrote the text at your cursor.

The colors come from a set chosen so people with color blindness can tell them apart. To make authors differ by more than color, turn on Line styles in the History panel: each person’s text is also underlined in a style of its own, such as solid, dashed or dotted. The same switch is in Editor settings under Accessibility.

Who wrote what and Show changes use the same marks, so turning on one turns off the other.