Occasionally, you and a colleague will both make changes to the same text in the same topic at the same time. This will only happen if you really both edit the same sentence in different ways. Changes in different locations in the same project or even the same topic will be merged silently by SVN, but may still create contradictions in the meaning of your text, so you really always need to coordinate with colleagues before working on the same topics.
You need a "merge tool" to handle conflicts
When conflicts occur, you need to be able to see your version of the text and the conflicting version and choose which one you want to save to the repository. This is done in a "merge tool", which shows you the versions side by side. Unfortunately, even though Tortoise SVN is an outstanding SVN client, its merge tool is not intuitive enough for normal users working in a program like Help+Manual.
Use WinMerge or Beyond Compare
There are two solutions we can recommend: The free WinMerge tool or the paid Beyond Compare tool in the Pro version. Both are excellent, and it is really up to you which one you use.
The free WinMerge tool is a well-maintained and outstanding solution for comparing and merging the contents of files and folders. It is fully aware of both SVN and Git and can be used as a merge tool for both systems.
Step 1: Download and install WinMerge
Download WinMerge and run it to install it. Select "Custom installation" and make sure that you install all the listed components. Select these options when they are offered:
If this option is shown select it and:
Select Merge at right pane
Disable Auto-merge at startup time
Note: The WinMerge setup may also offer the more practical Merge at center pane option. However, at the time of writing this doesn't work for its SVN integration and the merging is always set to the right pane. This documentation thus only covers the right-pane merging method.
Step 2: Add the path to WinMerge in Help+Manual
Open and configure the path to the WinMergeU.exe program in the Merge Tool to Resolve Conflicts field. WinMerge will then be opened automatically to resolve conflicts encountered when synchronizing with the SVN repository. See Using SVN in Help+Manual for details.
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Unfortunately, Beyond Compare cannot currently be used as a merge tool for SVN. This is because calling BC as a 3-pane merge tool requires additional information about each individual conflict file and all the additional temporary files that cannot be accessed automatically when processing all the files in a batch.
We recommend using the free WinMerge as your merge tool for SVN. See above for details.
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