How can you open a document from office online in the desktop application?

Microsoft Office 365 supports both the desktop versions of Microsoft Office applications, which are installed on a workstation, and the online versions of Office applications that can be opened, viewed, and edited in a Web browser. However, there are many differences between the two versions. The online versions of Office applications are usually referred as Office Online apps (e.g., Word Online app), while the desktop applications that you install on your workstation are called Office Desktop apps (e.g., Excel Desktop app). Therefore, that’s the terminology I will use in this article. The Office Online versions are not offered as a replacement for the full-featured desktop Office applications, they are only offered so users can quickly read an Office document online or make some minor changes to the application because most of the features in the desktop versions are not supported in the limited online versions. The Office Online apps in Office 365 can definitely come handy, but as you will discover after reading this article, there are just too many limitations in Office Online apps that prevent a vast majority of organizations from using them as a replacement for desktop apps, which are full-featured applications with all the bells and whistles. Best Practice: Do not work on the same document in both Office desktop app and Office Online app to avoid data corruption and other support issues. Pick one version and stick with it. The Office desktop version is the recommende...

If you are accessing Office documents from within SharePoint and Teams and not Windows Explorer, I am sure you noticed that by default, MS Office file types (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote) always open up in the browser. It is quick and straightforward, but you probably need a full desktop experience majority of the time (for formatting in Word, additional functionalities in Excel, etc.). Luckily, we have a way to change the default. In this article, I would like to summarize the available options we have – the one you choose depends on how and where you open files from. To change the default in SharePoint If you primarily access Office files from the SharePoint site/interface, you would be better off adjusting a setting on a document library that I describe in this post. Important Notes • This change will affect everyone using this site/document library • If you access the same files from the Teams interface, this change will not affect it To change the default in Teams If you primarily access Office files from the Teams interface, you can do the following. • In the upper-right-hand-corner of Teams, click three dots > Settings • Under Settings, click on the Files section • Change the default to Desktop app Important Notes • This change will only affect you, and not the other members of the team • This change does not affect how files are opened from SharePoint • This setting can only be adjusted in the Teams Desktop application– you will not be able to adjust this in Te...

Hello, I need to set the default file opening settings in SharePoint. When you open Excel, it always asks if you want to open it in the Excel desktop. There's a checkbox so he doesn't ask again and it works. The problem is that after restarting, it asks again. This is probably related to the default settings for opening files that can be changed in SharePoint. However, the setup is extremely extensive and I can't find it there. Please help. Thank you Hi MichalRama, Thank you for querying in this forum. From your description, it seems that you want to change the default open settings for the files in SharePoint Online. And you don’t want to show the alert to let you open it in client. May I know if my understanding is right? If so, we’d suggest you go to Settings > Library settings > Advanced settings > select Open in the browser under Default open behavior for browser enabled documents. For your reference: Disclaimer: Microsoft provides no assurances and/or warranties, implied or otherwise, and is not responsible for the information you receive from the third-party linked sites or any support related to technology. And we have also tested it on our side, we selected this option and it opened files in the browser by default. If the scenario above is not consistent with yours, may I know if you encountered the alert below? If so, we have tested it on our side with Microsoft Edge and it will appear every time when we open a file. However, per our test, it will not appear in C...

Hi all! We are having issues with external users not being able to open a shared doc in the desktop program - they can only edit/view in the browser. The "Open in Xprogram" button isn't even an option anymore! We are sharing with edit privileges and have external sharing turned on for our tenant. We have disabled anonymous links and only use "share with authenticated users" turned on. When we share, we select Specific People, type in the email address and share. The external user has access, they are just not able to open in the desktop application, even if they have it already or already 365 users in their own organization. This suddenly happened for us in August and we can't find a solution. Any ideas? Indeed it works and if that's not the case, open a support ticket. By the way adding here - Share the folder / file with an external user using the "Share with specific people" option and check the "Allow Editing" option - The external user will receive a message and will be asked to provide/sign with thee-mail the file/folder was shared with - The external user will see a message indicating that an access code has been sent to that e-mail - The external user enters the access code and can edit any Office document (I'm assuming here the user has a valid Office licence) it's never worked that way using just specific people with external users since the new sharing dialog has been around, only back with the old way would it work. The only way I know to get it working using d...

We're going to be doing away with offline Office soon and giving everyone access to Office Online through Office 365. I know it's pretty simple to drag and drop a local file into your browser to upload and edit it in Office Online, but does Microsoft offer some sort of utility that causes a file to automatically be uploaded and opened in browser if they try to open a file on their local computer? Just preparing myself for the wave of "Why don't my Word docs work anymore?!" Mostly a W7 Pro environment, with some W10 Pro sprinkled here and there. Will be 100% W10 Enterprise in the next few months. Thanks! Yes. Move the document to OneDrive then you should be able to have the option to "View online" when you right click the file. This is the only way (that I know of), how to open local Office documents online. One other thing you can do when you move to 365 online is to use GPO folder redirection to redirect documents folder to OneDrive. This way, user documents are backed up. -Aldrin- wrote: Yes. Move the document to OneDrive then you should be able to have the option to "View online" when you right click the file. This is the only way (that I know of), how to open local Office documents online. One other thing you can do when you move to 365 online is to use GPO folder redirection to redirect documents folder to OneDrive. This way, user documents are backed up. More details here: Opens a new window -Aldrin- wrote: One other thing you can do when you move to 365 online is to...

If you want to useMicrosoft Office but don't want to pay for it, why not try the free Office for the web? Formerly known as Office Online and Instead of installing Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on your computer, you use free, cloud-based versions of these programs, similar to Google Docs. And rather than store your files and documents on your computer, you save them to Office for the web isn't as feature-packed as its desktop counterpart. You'll find all the standard editing and formatting commands, and some additional features, but not much more. However, if all you need are the basics, this is an option worth trying. Office for the web offers online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, Skype, Calendar, and People. You can even work with more niche applications. An app called Sway allows you to create interactive reports and presentations, while a Forms app lets you create online surveys and quizzes. Here's how to get started using the Office for the web apps if you want to create, edit, and save your documents. Sign Up and Get Started If you don't already have one, set up a (Opens in a new window). Your account will come with 5GB of free OneDrive storage; if you need more, you can (Opens in a new window) for $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year. Navigate to the (Opens in a new window) and sign in with your Microsoft Account. At the Office website, there are icons for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. After you start creating and saving Office file...