Google docs and sheets work great, are easy to collaborate on simultaneously and you don't need to install anything. Cameron On Mon, Jan 22, 2018 at 12:50 PM, Valeri Galtsev <galtsev at kicp.uchicago.edu> wrote: > Dear All, > > Three groups of scientists need to write documents collaboratively. They > are going to use MS PowerPoint, Word, also store PDF files. They want to be > able to add external people from other groups they collaborate with and > give them access to some areas or "projects". In other words, they want > some collaborative work environment, mostly to work on documents. > > In the past scientists were using TeX, and one of version control systems > (CVS, subversion,...). And all was great, as TeX files (pretty much like > programs software developers write) are ASCII text files, and diff of two > version is rather small... > > Unlike the past scientists I work for plan to use MS PowerPoint, Word, > also store PDF files. All these are effectively binary files for version > control systems, then versions will not be stored as a small diff, but each > version ends up being the whole document. > > One obvious solution may be: just buy office365.com service, or set up MS > server on our own machine. And these are the two things I am trying to > avoid. > > Could someone recommend open source software? Some collaborative suite > focused mostly on working on documents, with web based interface. > > I run owncloud server for my Department, and one in general can use that, > but I hope to find something more focused towards collaborative work. > > Thanks a lot for your advises and pointers. > > Valeri > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Valeri Galtsev > Sr System Administrator > Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics > Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics > University of Chicago > Phone: 773-702-4247 > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >