I have an excel list (excel 2003) where user enter translations for tokens. It has 3 columns (key, value, language). It can be something like key: Login.Header, value: "Please login to the website" language: en.
This works quite well. I use this file to generate language specific images in a website that uses lots of graphics for texts. The good thing is that users are able to enter text without installing new software, editing is nice and the resulting file can be read easily by my python script.
There is one think that I dislike: If 2 users edit the file and have lots of changes than merging gets a nightmare.
Is there an editing solution that is as good as excel in the areas I described but can be merged more easily?
EDIT
The answers so far explained how a source controll system can help in such a situation. But I already have SVN in place.
The question is about the file format. There are file formats that are easy to merge with a client like winmerge (like source code for java or c# backend classes) and there are others that are difficult to merge (xml, files generated by code generation). xls - files of excel 2003 can be diffed but it's still no nice format for merging.
I think there is a different application (something like apple works,open office, excel 2010 .. ) that let me edit a table but can be merged more easily.
Is there an editing solution that is as good as excel in the areas I described but can be merged more easily?
Maybe not exactly the expected answer but the best way to avoid merge and conflicts problems would be obviously to avoid having to merge. I would consider using a collaborative editing solution to avoid having to deal with various versions of the file:
If all your users are on a same network (LAN, VPN), then the first solution that come to mind would be to put a unique Excel file on a network share and to activate the Shared Workbook option. This works pretty well and, in case of conflict, users are prompted with a conflict resolution dialog box.
If this is not an option, then you could maybe put your spreadsheet on Google Docs. Google Docs works very well for collaborative work (it's easy to configure who can access a document, you can see a list of users currently connected, the collaborative edition just works). Then just export the spreadsheet for processing when done.
Use a collaborative text editor like Gobby (multi platform) and work on a raw CSV file. This won't be very user friendly though, especially for non techies, and error prone. I'd favor the above solutions.