When cooperating in a shared workspace, several authors may want to repeatedly edit and revise common documents. Keeping track of the many changes by the various authors means additional effort that can be avoided by putting such documents under version control.

The contents of a document under version control are not simply replaced when a document is modified; instead, a new version is created as the current version.

Earlier versions are maintained; their sequence is identified by increasing version numbers (e.g. 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, etc.). You may access earlier versions of a document via the document’s info page (see 3.8) or directly via a URL with a version number (see 5.3.5).