Co-authoring in Excel

Newer versions of Excel no longer support the document sharing option I have written in one of the earlier texts. It can still be used after manually adding to the quick menu or toolbar, but collaborating on documents has evolved into co-authoring. This means that the documents are saved on the OneDrive repository, and that the right-hand users can change them at the same time.

Co-authoring is a functionality that has existed for some time, and is supported for OfficeOnline or Office365 subscribers. Documents are shared and managed in a much simpler way, you just need to create or open an Excel document and click on the Share button located in the upper right corner of the window. This action will open the panel on the right side of the Save to Cloud button. Clicking on it opens the OneDrive repository folder for the account you previously added to the Accounts section in the Background View panel.

In case you do not already work with the document in the cloud, the Save As menu will open that tells you to save the document in the appropriate OneDrive folder. After selecting the photo editor and recording the document, the Share panel view, on the right, will change. At the bottom you can see its users. At the beginning, only one user is visible, who is also an author, and if you share the document here, another one will appear. At the top of the panel is the Invite People field where we enter the e-mail addresses of people with whom we want to share the document. Alternatively, by clicking on the icon on the right, we can also add them from the existing address book. Just below is a drop-down list with two options: Can View and Can Edit. By choosing the first option, we limit the rights of the user to view the document, and by choosing the other we allow him to become a co-author. In the end, there is another optional field where we can enter a short message. By clicking the Share button, we share the document and at the same time send the mail to the user with whom we have distributed it.

All users with the right of co-authorship can enter changes to the document, each of which will see the cursor of other co-authors and all changes. Changes happen simultaneously, it’s only important that users directly work on the document and not have a copy of it open.