DeltaXML announced the release of new versions of their products XML Merge and DITA Merge, featuring improved handling of changes in CALS tables, as already available in XML Compare. It also adds the ability to ignore the order of columns, which means that a change in order doesn’t trigger delta markup in the result. Those used to seeing row duplications in their table results will be pleased to know that these have been dramatically reduced.
With XML Merge 11.0.0 and DITA Merge 7.0.0, this new table algorithm is included in merge products. This has added more complexity, but these products, as well as being easy to configure, produce the most rigorous and accurate comparisons. If some of the table versions have different structures, it’s necessary to select a ‘master’ table from which to create the result, which is used as the priority to determine which version to use as the master. The spans in that version are prioritised and other spans are created around them as necessary to ensure table validity. This approach helps to keep the result table as compact as possible while still representing how the table content has changed.
