Collaboration in Microsoft Office: painful but not impossible

Si trabaja con documentos, es probable que utilice Microsoft Office para crearlos, editarlos y darles formato. Pero Office no es la única opción que existe. En los últimos años, Google Docs y otras alternativas en línea han ganado popularidad al permitir a los usuarios compartir y coeditar documentos en tiempo real desde cualquier dispositivo.

Microsoft has responded to this challenge by introducing new Office suites that combine desktop and browser applications and enable collaboration between users. But how well do these features work in practice? And are they worth the cost of a subscription to Office 365 or Office 2013 software?

In this blog post, I will review the collaboration experience for Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint, using both an Office 365 account and a free Microsoft account. I will highlight the pros and cons of co-editing with Office and compare it to Google Docs and other competitors.

One of the benefits of the new Office is that it allows you to share and collaborate with anyone, inside or outside your organization, using SkyDrive cloud storage and Office Web Apps.

Suppose you want to share a document with someone and allow them to view or edit it in Word Web App. Here are the steps you need to follow:

– First, you must save your document to SkyDrive. You can do this from the File menu, by clicking Save As and choosing SkyDrive as the location.

– Next, you must create a share link that will grant you access to your document. You can do this from the File menu, by clicking on Share and selecting Get a link or Invite people. The first option will generate a link that you can copy and paste into an email or chat message. The second option will allow you to send email invitations to your Outlook contacts directly from Word.

– Before creating or sending the link, you can choose whether to allow editing or not. If you choose to allow editing, the recipient will be able to make changes to your document in the Word Web App. If you choose not to allow editing, the recipient will only be able to view your document.

– When the recipient clicks on the link, they will see your document in their browser, using the Word web application. However, they will also see a pop-up message warning them that the Internet may be insecure and that they can only read the document by default. They will need to click Enable Editing to begin making changes. This is a security feature that prevents unauthorized editing of your document.

By using this method, you and your co-authors can work on the same document at the same time, with some limitations. For example, in Word, you cannot edit the same paragraph at the same time as someone else. If you try to do so, you will receive a pop-up message informing you that someone else is working on that part of the document.

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How to collaborate on Office documents online

If you want to share and edit your Office documents with others, you don’t need to install any software or pay a subscription. You can use Office Web Apps, which are free online versions of Word, Excel, OneNote and PowerPoint. Here’s how it works.

First, you must upload your document to a cloud storage service, such as OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. Then, you can create a link to your document and send it to the people you want to collaborate with. You can choose whether you want them to just view or also edit the document.

When the recipient clicks the link, a browser window opens the file in the Word, Excel, OneNote or PowerPoint web application. Note that even if you have sent a link authorizing the recipient to edit the document, the recipient sees the same pop-up message that all Office applications generate when opening any document by email or downloading from the Internet, warning them that because the Internet may not be secure, by default they can only read the document. The recipient must click a button to allow editing, an odd step, since you created a link that specifically allows them to edit the document.

You and your designated co-authors can work on the document at the same time, with a couple of limitations. In Word, for example, you and your colleagues cannot edit the same paragraph simultaneously. If you attempt to do so, you will receive a pop-up message to that effect.

Office Web Apps have most of the features and functions of the desktop versions, but are simplified and optimized for online use. You can format text, insert images and tables, add comments and track changes, and more. You can also switch to the desktop version if you need more advanced options.

Office Web Apps are a great way to collaborate on documents online without sacrificing quality or compatibility. They’re also cross-browser and cross-device compatible, so you can access your documents from anywhere. Try them today and see how easy it is to work together online.

If you work for an organization that has an Office 365 business plan, you have access to some collaboration tools that are not available to individual users. For example, Office 365 Small Business Premium and Office 365 Midsize Business include SharePoint and Lync servers that allow you to work together and communicate with colleagues online.

However, there is a difference in the way you create and share documents with your co-workers in Office 365. Hopefully, if you have Office 2013 installed on your desktop, you can use it to co-edit documents with others. But that’s not the case by default. When you receive an invitation to edit a document, Office 365 opens the document in the web browser, using the web application version of Word, Excel or PowerPoint. To switch to the desktop version of the program, you must click the Edit button in Word in the web application and wait for the desktop program to launch. This can be annoying and time-consuming, especially if you prefer to use all the features of the Office desktop.

In this blog post, we will show you how to change this default behavior and have Office 365 open documents in the desktop version of Office automatically. We will also explain how to co-edit documents with others using the Office desktop and what the benefits and limitations of this option are.