After few weeks of searching for easy and working solution to place Open document type files created and edited in OpenOffice under a version control (SVN, CVS, ...), I came to a conclusion.
The easiest and the most simple way is to unzip the document and commit. While using this approach, there is one setting to be changed in the editor.
By default the XML part of the document is all written in one line in order to produce smaller file size. This makes it harder to see changes in the version control log. To go around this, just change one setting in "Tools – Options – Load/Save – General" dialogue. Deselect the item "Size optimization for XML format".
While you are here, it is good practise to check the item "Always create backup copy".
These instructions apply for OpenOffice version 2.3, but might be available in earlier versions.
