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I want a very simple source control system for storing word documents I'm working on. I'm a writer, not a developer. I want something really simple so that I have (a) backup and (b) version control. Nothing more than that. Ideally on the cloud. Ideally free, or close to free. I'd like to avoid doing anything too technical. [If it helps, once upon a time, I could code and I now work as an Agile PM, so I understand source control from a feature, if not technical perspective.]

Thanks for your help!

Clarke

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migrated from stackoverflow.com Dec 10 '09 at 12:10

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9 Answers

up vote 9 down vote

I don't know if it works the way you want, but DropBox does store some previous versions of the files that you synchronize with it. Perhaps that would be enough?

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Hi Fredrik, That was quick! I didn't realise DropBox did versioning ... I'll check it out because that's probably all I need. Clarke – Anonymous Dec 10 '09 at 11:07
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Unless you pay for dropbox, they only store the previous 30 days worth of content. Also, they don't provide a diff mechanism. – Pridkett Dec 10 '09 at 15:03
@Pridkett: Well, the asker is storing Word documents, so lack of diff probably doesn't matter. Good to mention it anyway, though. – Ilari Kajaste Dec 13 '09 at 11:21
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up vote 7 down vote

I would recommend TortoiseSVN. It has the features and reliability of a professional grade programmers version control system. It is also drop dead simple to use - It integrates with windows explorer to show the status of your document and it understands MS word diffs.

If you have not used professional grade version control before you will need to learn a bit of terminology, like the difference between a working copy (Where you do your work) and a repository (permanent and central document store). If you need it, the documentation is awesomely easy to read.

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+1 for Subversion, however, it does require a SVN server (or Apache with SVN module). – Nathan Adams Dec 10 '09 at 16:52
you can get a free Subversion server through xp-dev.com (200MB) Still, saying TortoiseSVN is dead simple is true.. when there are no problems. If you make a false move, youre gonna be cursing your way out of it. – Shawn Dec 10 '09 at 17:44
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No, it does not require a server, you can use the TortoiseSVN client to create and use a local a repository. – Michael Borgwardt Dec 10 '09 at 18:03
Still, he will need a compare tool that know how to handle DOC files (in case he uses MS Word). That's where the real pain lies. – Shaihi Jan 3 '10 at 12:09
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up vote 5 down vote

Word Documents are stored in a binary format unlike source code which is plain text.

Most "source code" control systems have facilities for dealing with plain text documents but are much less useful when dealing with binary files. I should mention that they will work but only as far as keeping backups of each version (no comparison tools for example.) A file versioning backup solution like TimeMachine (Mac) or DropBox (cloud) may be a simpler solution in this case.

You may want to look into a "content control" or "document control" system as they tend to have facilities for dealing with word documents natively.

Whatever solution you use, you always have the version comparison tools within Word available to you.

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up vote 2 down vote

If you're just looking into keeping versions by date, the article Simple version control describes the simplest possible solution, based on a one-line batch file:

xcopy "C:\Folder To Place Under Version Control" "%HOMEPATH%\My Documents\Simple Version Control\%DATE%" /V /I /S

The article also describes how you can combine this with off-site backup.

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up vote 0 down vote

Thanks. Both answers are very, very useful.

It may sound silly, but I'm going to do both tonight. I've a sony memory card which slots into my laptop and I'll setup the batch file back to that. I'll also ensure that drop box gives me online backup and versioning.

This is a brilliant site! Thanks Fredrik and Harry.

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please 'add comment' under the specific answers or edit your question, should not post 'answers' as 'replies' to entries. – Jakub Dec 10 '09 at 16:19
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up vote 0 down vote

I read sometime ago about huddle. I just checked and they have a package free to use based on ads. They supports versions and Microsoft Word documents.

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up vote 0 down vote

http://workspace.officelive.com/en-us/ has version control functions

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up vote 0 down vote

If you are looking for cloud source control I would advise you to try kilnhg.com or beanstalkapp.com

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up vote -2 down vote

use git http://git-scm.com/

Git is a free & open source, distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency.

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Not "Extremely simple", though. – harrymc Dec 10 '09 at 16:39
But simple enough for me to understand. – grawity Dec 11 '09 at 14:57
source control is not a simple task. – George Dec 22 '09 at 19:24
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