Editing Documents

Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator offers you different methods of editing SharePoint documents:

  • Edit Office documents with Microsoft Office, or with Office Web Apps.
  • Edit documents directly on the SharePoint server, or edit a local copy of the document.

When working with versioned libraries, after you are done editing the document, you should check it in to make it available to other users. To learn how, read Working with versioned libraries.

Editing Office documents

By default, Office documents are opened for editing with Microsoft Office.

You can open Office documents on SharePoint 2010 with Office Web Apps. To enable Office Web Apps for a specific site, open File > Preferences, and select the SharePoint tab. Select the SharePoint 2010 site and click Edit Site > Open supported documents in Office Web Apps.

Notes:

The supported document types that can be opened with Office Web Apps are Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents. For this to work, Office Web Apps must be installed on the SharePoint 2010 server.

To edit a Microsoft Office document from Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator, double-click it in the sidebar document list to open it. When you open an Office document from Mainsoft SharePoint Integrator you can edit it directly, and any changes you make are immediately saved to the server. You can also use the built-in SharePoint collaboration features in Microsoft Office applications.

Note: If the SharePoint site is configured with Forms authentication, you will not be able to edit the Office documents directly. In this case, a temporary copy of the document opens, and you must save it locally and then upload it to the server after editing it. To learn how, read Editing local copies of documents.

Editing non-Office documents

You can force non-Office documents to open the SharePoint server copy by using the Edit item in the document list's context menu. open a SharePoint site, document library in the web browser from the document list's context menu.

When you open a non-Office document, a temporary copy of the file opens. Changes to this file are not saved on the server. To force applications to open the document directly on the SharePoint server, right-click it and select Edit.

Notes:

  • The Edit menu option is not available for Microsoft Office documents.
  • The Edit menu option is not available when connected to a SharePoint site using custom credentials. In this case, you should edit a local copy of the document as explained below.

Editing local copies of documents

In the following scenarios you cannot edit a document directly on the SharePoint server:

  • If the SharePoint site is configured with Forms authentication and you want to edit a Microsoft Office document.
  • If you are connected to the SharePoint site using custom credentials, and you want to edit a non-Office document.
  • If the application associated with the document you want to edit does not support UNC paths.

In these cases you should edit a local copy of the document. Download the document to your computer. When you are ready to commit your changes, upload the document back to the server by dragging it to the sidebar or by selecting the Upload toolbar button. Since an earlier version of the document already exists on the server, you are prompted to replace the document or to add a new version of the document to the SharePoint library (depending on your library versioning settings).

When uploading a document that already exists in the SharePoint document library, you are asked if you want to replace the existing document.