Versioning and file formats

[theorbix]

Does Alfresco allow  to store different versions of a document in different formats?

For example, would it be possible to create a document in Word format, and then store version 2 and 3 of the same document still in Word format, but then store version 4 in PDF format?

Can this create problems to the logic consistency of the Alfresco repository?

I remember of another ECM system in which it was impossible to "mix and match" versioning and different document formats… once a document was created in a given format, the system was expecting all new versions of that document to be in the same format.

I wonder if Alfresco is more flexible in handling such a requirement…

[tommorris]

Yep - there's no problems doing this.

You may like to change the name of the file extension between versions, just so that a user isn't confused why a '*.pdf' file launches a MS Word file.

[theorbix]

Thanks for the reply… can you clarify a bit the last sentence ("You may like to change the name of the file extension between versions, just so that a user isn't confused why a '*.pdf' file launches a MS Word file.")?

[tommorris]

If you upload an MS Word file and call it 'myfile.doc', it will have a mime-type of something like 'application/msword'.
Then enable versioning.
Now update the content by uploading a completely different file, one that is already in PDF format. If you check the properties of this file, you'll see it's mime-type has now changed to something like 'application/pdf'. If you now select that file to download, it will open up Adobe Reader instead.
If you open up the version history, you'll see two versions of the file, each will open using a different application because they both have a different mime-type.

So, the only possible confusion, is that just because you've uploaded a different binary format and changed it's mime-type, the file name is still the original 'myfile.doc', so you may like to rename it to 'myfile.pdf'.

[theorbix]

Yup! Understood…

Well, yes, if the mime/type is attached to each version, that's perfect.

[pjcaracuel]

Hi,

Sorry for re-open this ticket.

So, the only possible confusion, is that just because you've uploaded a different binary format and changed it's mime-type, the file name is still the original 'myfile.doc', so you may like to rename it to 'myfile.pdf'.

If you rename myfile.doc to myfile.pdf, could you have a problem for do it?

In any case, I think it isn´t a good practice  renaming  version of a document.

Regards