When Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents are stored in your Microsoft 365 libraries, you can work together on them using Microsoft 365 for the web, which opens the documents in a web browser.
When you open documents in Microsoft 365 for the web, your teammates can open them at the same time. That means you don’t have to wait for Tom to finish adding his information to a spreadsheet before you can enter yours. You finish sooner because you don’t have to take turns.
You might send out a link, inviting people to work on a document with you. As you see each other’s updates you can talk to each other and share ideas, resulting in a document that’s truly a team effort.
Begin by storing documents in your OneDrive library or team site (If you have Office 2010 or later, you can save directly from your Office program to the team site or OneDrive library).
Click a document’s name to open it in Microsoft 365 for the web.
If your colleagues are online, try chatting while you work together, or start an impromptu meeting.
Tips
To help your teammates get to the document quickly, send them a link: next to the document’s name, click Open Menu, and then click Share.
Note: For more information about sharing documents in Microsoft 365, see Share items in your SharePoint OneDrive and Share SharePoint files or folders in Microsoft 365.
Here are some things to keep in mind when you’re working with others:
Word documents and OneNote notebooks It’s okay if some people are working in the Word or OneNote desktop program while others are working in an Microsoft 365 for the web program. In the desktop programs, co-authoring works best in the most recent version of Office (Mac and Windows), but is also supported all the way back to Office 2010. Whether you’re working in the desktop program or Microsoft 365 for the web, updates are handled differently in OneNote and Word:
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OneNote notebooks show updates immediately.
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In Word documents, save the document to share your updates and to see others’ updates. If you have AutoSave enabled this is handled for you.
Excel workbooks Everyone opens the workbook in Excel for the web. The workbook displays updates immediately. If somebody joins the coauthoring session using Excel for Microsoft 365 or Excel on iOS or Android everything will continue as before.
If someone opens the workbook in the Excel 2019, or older, Excel desktop program, everyone is locked out of the workbook until that person closes it.
PowerPoint presentations For best results, everyone opens the presentation in PowerPoint for the web or in PowerPoint 2013. People who open the presentation in PowerPoint 2013 might have problems saving the file if others are making updates to the presentation in PowerPoint for the web.
For details about co-authoring in Microsoft 365 for the web, see Work together in Office for the web.
