Co-Authoring and Collaboration

Co-authoring lets people edit the same document together in an online session, with each person's changes visible to the others. Files.com supports commenting, reviewing, and accepting changes with other users and with Share Link recipients. Real-time collaboration works for dozens of users at once.

Joining the Same Editing Session

Everyone co-authoring a document must use the online editor configured for the Files.com site: the Files.com editor or Microsoft Office for Web.

Account users need Full Permission on the folder to edit. Share Link visitors can collaborate when the link allows Full access and the site's Online Editor Integration for Share Links is enabled. A visitor's registration does not reserve the document for that visitor; other visitors with permission to edit can join the same session.

The editor combines participants' changes in one working document. A periodic save does not start a new session, and one person closing their tab does not end the shared session while others continue editing. See saving changes for when the stored file is updated.

Coordinating Other Editing Paths

A desktop application does not participate in online co-authoring. Opening Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files through the Desktop App's Mounted Drive Mode uses file locks to coordinate a separate editing path: the desktop application opens a document as read-only while an online session has it open, and the online editor prevents a separate editing session while the desktop application has it open for editing.

Other clients may not honor Files.com locks. Downloading a document and editing the local copy also does not join or update the online session. If someone later replaces the stored file with that copy, it can overwrite changes saved by the online editor, or a later editor save can overwrite that replacement.

Editing directly on a remote storage provider is another separate path. For example, a document on a SharePoint mount can be opened through Files.com or directly in SharePoint online, but the two services work on separate copies. Their edits are not shared, and whichever saves last can overwrite the other's changes. Have collaborators use the same Files.com online session for simultaneous work.

Logging Changes from a Co-Authoring Session

The editor saves the combined document using the first participant's identity. File activity history attributes those saves to that person, even when another participant made the edits. The activity records and notifications follow the shared online editing behavior.

If a participant loses permission to edit the file, saves under that person's identity are blocked. A shared session can still save under the first participant's identity if that participant retains the required access. See permission changes during online editing.

Logging Versus Track Changes

File history cannot tell you which collaborator made a particular edit. Once the session is over, that attribution is not recoverable from the logs.

Enable Track Changes in the online editor when you need to attribute specific edits to specific collaborators. Changes are recorded as suggestions, labeled with the editor's name and a timestamp. The team can review and discuss those changes before accepting them into the final version. This document-level record serves a different purpose from the file history showing when the editor saved the combined file.