Document Co-Authoring in SharePoint Online

SharePoint Online training courses

This SharePoint Online tutorial explains, Document Co-Authoring in SharePoint Online/2016/2019. We will see what is document co-authoring in SharePoint? How we can use co-authoring functionality in word, excel, PowerPoint, etc documents.

What is Document Co-Authoring in SharePoint Online?

Document Co-Authoring is a good feature of SharePoint, which allows multiple people to work on a word document, Excel document, PowerPoint document, or OneNote document at the same time.

Note: In SharePoint online or Office 365 the Co-Authoring is always enabled by default no need to enable it manually.

Suppose two people are editing the same document at a time, then one user can able to know the other one’s presence.

Co-Authoring a word document in SharePoint Online

Open the the SharePoint Document Library click on New. Here we can able to see

  • Word document
  • Excel workbook
  • PowerPoint presentation
  • OneNote notebook

Select the Word document.

co-authoring sharepoint 2016
co-authoring SharePoint online

I have written one document and click on “FILE”.

co-authoring office 2016
co-authoring office 2016

In File option, we can able to see the Share option. Click on Share. Two option is there

  • Share with People
  • Embed

Share with People option we can able to Share our document with multiple users. I want to share the document so click on “Share with People”.

If we choose the second option then directly attach the document to Blog or Website.

co-authoring office 365
co-authoring office 365

We will get Send Link page where we can add the username to whom we want to send the document. We can send the message to the user. Click on Send.

Below the page, we can able to see Copy Link when we click on copy the link our link is copied.

office 2016 co-authoring
office 2016 co-authoring

When we logged in with “Preeti” then we can able to see the link when we click on the link we can directly open the word document.

When we logged in with my user we can able to see another user who is editing the document.

Document collaboration and co-authoring
Document collaboration and co-authoring

When we logged in with Preeti we can able to see my user name.

how to enable co-authoring in sharepoint 2013
how to enable co-authoring in SharePoint 2013

In SharePoint in word online we can able to see the presence of the user.

Co-Authoring an Excel Workbook in SharePoint Online

When we choose the Excel Workbook in SharePoint we can able to see an Excel page. I have added data into the Excel. To Share the Excel Click on Share. We can able to see Send Link page where we can add username and click on Send.

co-authoring sharepoint 2016
co-authoring SharePoint 2016

When we open the Excel book with send user we can able to see in the top of the page that “Padmini Kumari” is also editing.

co-authoring office 2016
co-authoring office 2016

Like the word and Excel, we can Share  PowerPoint presentation document and OneNote notebook.

Note: Some Point we have to remember

  • If two people modify at a time in different line then both can able to see the changes.
  • When the two people modify in the same line then the last modified data is showing.

How to enable co-authoring in SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint 2016?

In SharePoint 2013/2016, Co-Authoring is not enabled by default we have to enable manually.

For enabling Co-Authoring, follow the below things.

Open the SharePoint document library Settings. Click on “Versioning Settings” from “General Settings”.

Document collaboration and co-authoring
Document collaboration and co-authoring

Select “Create major versions” from “Document Version History”.

Check the Keep the following number of major versions to limit the total version to retain. Click on OK.

how to enable co-authoring in sharepoint 2013
how to enable co-authoring in SharePoint 2013

When we checked out the document then the document is unavailable for co-authoring. So we need to make sure Require Check Out option is disabled.

In the Version settings page below the Draft Item Security, we can able to see Require Check Out option. Choose “No” there like below:

co-authoring sharepoint 2016
co-authoring SharePoint 2016

For Storing a Documents for Co-authoring

For storing a Document in Co-authoring some location are required.

  1. SharePoint Online
  2. SharePoint Server
  3. One Drive for Business
  4. One Drive Consumer

You may like following SharePoint document library tutorials:

This SharePoint Online tutorial, we discussed document co-authoring in SharePoint Online or SharePoint 2013/2016. We saw how to use document co-authoring in SharePoint Online word, excel documents etc.

Also, we saw how can we enable document co-authoring in SharePoint 2016/2013.

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