Microsoft has announced that its Office Web Apps which comprise of the online versions of its popular Word, PowerPoint and Excel apps are getting the real-time collaboration feature.
This essentially means that the apps will now allow more than one user to work on files simultaneously, similar to Google Docs, Google's online office suite.
¨New real-time presence helps you see where your co-authors are working in the document so that you don't create conflicts as you edit. Additionally, the new ability to see changes to text and formatting as they happen will help you and your co-authors stay on the same page as your ideas develop and evolve," said Microsoft in a
blog post.
Just like Google Docs, the Office Web Apps display a different coloured cursor for each user working on the document and edits are included and seen as they happen.
Collaborative co-authoring can also be done through the desktop version of the Office 365 apps and the changes will sync up to the document stored in the cloud when saved.
If one of the desktop app users goes offline, he/she can still work in the document and the changes will be synced back up for the team to see when the user goes online again.
In addition to collaboration, Microsoft has also updated each of the Office Web Apps to bring the experience of the desktop apps to the Web. For instance, the Word Web App, has been updated with improved formatting controls. Microsoft has also added other new features including ability to find and replace words and phrases, apply styles and formatting to tables, and insert headers and footers for more professional reports and papers.
Similarly, the Excel Web App now features the ability to drag and drop cells and reorder sheets and offers a quick analysis of a range of data right in the status bar, including sum, count, and average of a selected range of cells. It also supports more workbook types online, and users can now open and interact with spreadsheets that have Sheet Protection.
The PowerPoint Web App now offers a picture cropping functionality and the ability to change the name of files within the editing window of PowerPoint Web App, and across the other Office Web Apps.
Microsoft has also promised that it will extend Office Web App's document editing feature to Android tablets. The company has said that Office Web Apps users working in SkyDrive and Office 365 will get real-time co-authoring capabilities and new features, within the next few days.