• Got tables within reports loading and displaying data
• Started looking in to comment systems and looked at both Microsoft Word and Google Docs

Microsoft Word’s version is pretty clunky and appears to be a single anchor at either the start or end of the comment with a character length associated with it.  Adding to deleting text within the comment simply changes the character length counter.  However, deleting the single anchor point remove the entire comment permanently.

Google Docs has a very nice comment system.  Comments appear to be stored as references from the document instead of within the document itself.  An array of begin and end anchors are stored for each comment so comments can span several words, skip some, then include more.  Comments can also be replied to making them more of a dialog or blog for collaborative work.  When a comment is resolved, it’s not deleted but simply removed from view.  A full history of comments and dialogs are accessible from within the document’s menus.

Out of curiosity I contacted Google’s sales department to see if Google Docs could be licensed and deployed on a closed network.  The definitive answer is no, but they do offer “secure government” solutions that are HIPAA and FERPA certified but still require access to the internetz.