Co-authoring documents in SharePoint Online

In this SharePoint tutorial, I will show you how to use co-authoring documents in SharePoint Online. By using this feature, multiple users can edit a document simultaneously in SharePoint Online.

I will explain here, how to implement co-authoring in a SharePoint Online document library, and how to disable co-authoring in a document library in SharePoint Online.

Co-authoring documents in SharePoint Online

Microsoft provides a lot of features to work with documents in SharePoint Online. One of the very useful features is co-authoring documents. By using co-authoring features, multiple users simultaneously work on a single document inside a SharePoint Online document library.

It will help us in managing a document like one user’s changes will be reflected to the other users. You do not have to wait for someone to complete modifications to the document.

The types of files we can co-author in a SharePoint Online document library are:

• Excel
• Word
• PowerPoint, etc.

Here are a few points to remember:

• By default when you create a document library, the “Require Check Out” option is enabled, so we cannot co-author any documents presented inside the document library. If you want to use co-authoring for that document library, make sure “Require Check Out” is set to No. Follow the steps below or have a look at SharePoint Document Library Check in and Check out.
• Make sure the users should have edit permission to the document inside the SharePoint Online document library. Without Edit permission, they cannot edit the document.

SharePoint Document Library Co-authoring Example

Now, let us see, how to co-author a document that is inside a document library in SharePoint Online.

I have created a document library for RENA Technologies, a company based out in the United States of America where users have uploaded a few documents.

When multiple users wanted to co-author a document inside that SharePoint document library, it shows me an error: “CHECK OUT REQUIRED To modify this server workbook you must check it out”.

The error looks like the below:

Follow the below steps to disable Require check-out feature in the SharePoint Online document library.

• Open the SharePoint document library (Semiconductor Product Documents).
• Click on the Settings icon which appears on the top-right corner of the page -> choose Library settings.
• Under General settings, choose Versioning settings

• In Require Checkout, choose NO (to be checked out before they can be edited as no)

• Then click on the OK button to save our changes.

This is how to disable the check-out in SharePoint Document Library. Once the check out option is disabled we can co-author any documents.

Co-authoring an Excel file in a SharePoint document library

Here we will see who are the users editing an Excel file of the SharePoint document library.

• Open the SharePoint document library (Semiconductor Product Documents).
• Select a document, and open it. (Semiconductor Employee details)

• Now, we can see that our users are editing it.

This is how we can Co-authoring the Excel file in the SharePoint document library.

Disable co-authoring in SharePoint online document library

To disable co-authoring feature for a SharePoint Online document library, enable the “Require Check Out” option as explained above. Once you enable it, the co-authoring feature will be disabled for the same document library.

Co-authoring and Versioning in a SharePoint Online document library

To check who all are modified the document, make sure to enable the versioning for that SharePoint Online document library. Once the versioning is enabled, you will be able to track the changes details as well as the user who modified it.

Co-author offline in a SharePoint Online document library

We can also co-author a document while you are offline. If you are offline, we can not see who is editing the document as well as the changes, but once the user backs up online, the changes will be reflected in the document. And also from the version history, we can see who made the changes.

Conclusion

In this SharePoint tutorial, we discussed how to use co-authoring documents in SharePoint Online. In the same way, we can use the co-authoring feature in SharePoint server 2019, SharePoint Server subscription edition, etc. Also, we discussed

• What is co-authoring in SharePoint Online and what advantages it provides?
• Co-authoring in SharePoint Online document library
• Disable co-authoring in SharePoint Online
• Co-authoring and Versioning in a SharePoint Online document library
• Co-author offline in the SharePoint Online document library

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• SharePoint Online document library folder level permissions
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