Editing with Office for the web
The Repository Web Client uses Office for the web to allow for easy editing of Office documents in your repository. Furthermore, multiple users can simultaneously co-author documents, enabling a streamlined experience to collaboratively produce and edit content. This embedded version of Office supports Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.
Co-authoring is configured by an administrator for the entire account. There is no need for additional user-side configuration or components such as the Office Integration add-in.
Requirements: every user needs a Microsoft 365 work or school account with a license that includes Office for the web, such as Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, Apps for business, Apps for enterprise, E3, or E5.
Working with Office for the web
Before using Office for the web for the first time, you will need to sign in with your Microsoft 365 work or school account to edit a document. However, using the Laserfiche Cloud integration does not require any additional configuration.
To edit documents using Office for the web:
- Sign in to Laserfiche Cloud and navigate to your repository by clicking on the App Picker icon in the upper-right and choosing the repository you want to work in.
- Once in your repository, upload a new Word, Excel or PowerPoint document or select one of the existing documents in your repository.
- Click on the document title to open the document preview screen.
- Click the Edit With button in the top right. To keep working within Laserfiche Cloud client, choose the Microsoft Word Online (or the application that matches the document type) option. This will redirect you to the Microsoft's hosted log-in page for Microsoft 365.
- Complete signing in to Microsoft. After signing in, you will be redirected to Laserfiche with the document open through Office for the web and available for editing. Your sign in is stored for future use.
- Other users may co-author the document at the same time as you by signing in to Laserfiche Cloud and Microsoft Word Online. All users will see the cursor location of each user. All changes from all users will be persistently saved to document within the repository.
Note: Choosing an option that is not "Online" will prompt you to open the Laserfiche Office Integration, which will download the file locally to edit on your desktop. Desktop editing does not support co-authoring. See the Laserfiche Office Integration tray app for more details.
File size limits in Microsoft 365 for the web:
There are file size constraints when viewing or editing documents with the Laserfiche Integration with Microsoft 365. This is due to the file size limits from Microsoft Office for the web.
| Microsoft 365 Application | Mode | Size Limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excel | Edit | 25 MB | |
| Excel | View | 25 MB | |
| PowerPoint | Edit | 300 MB | Subject to overall 60 second time out for file downloads. In addition, for embedded media, the size limit is 100MB for most embedded media types. For WAV files the limit is 100KB. |
| PowerPoint | View | See notes | Subject to overall 60 second time out for file downloads. |
| Word | Edit | 100 MB | |
| Word | View | See notes | Subject to overall 60 second time out for file downloads. |
The above values are taken from Microsoft's documentation.
To enable editing with Office for the web:
- Click the App Picker icon in the upper-right of Laserfiche Cloud.
- Select Repository Administration.
- Open the Integrations page.
- Go to the Services tab and set the Edit with Microsoft 365 for the web toggle to ON.
- Click Save to save your changes.
Note: You must have the Manage Repository Configuration privilege to access this page.
To disable editing with Office for the web:
- Click the App Picker icon in the upper-right of Laserfiche Cloud.
- Select Repository Administration.
- Open the Integrations page.
- Go to the Services tab and set the Edit with 365 for the web toggle to OFF.
- Click Save to save your changes.
Note: You must have the Manage Repository Configuration privilege to access this page.
For more information, see Microsoft 365.
Working with Legacy File Formats
Microsoft Office Online does not support directly editing files in binary formats such as doc, ppt, and xls. You can choose to allow Office Online to convert those documents to modern formats like docx, pptx, and xlsx to edit them in Office for the web.
However, the conversion process is not always perfect. Be aware that the conversion process can introduce changes to the layout and formatting of the document and that the conversion process may not support all legacy options. For example, legacy format .doc files with digital signatures may not be converted properly.
Tip: For more information, see Microsoft 365.