How do I edit PDF-documents in SharePoint/MetaShare?

As PDF-documents in Microsoft 365 are opened in the web browser, you will need to use one of the following methods to edit a PDF document in MetaShare and save the changes back to MetaShare, where the first two methods are the only ones that are somewhat meaningful.

Method 1 – Download the document, edit it in the client application and upload a new version

The good thing with this method it that the procedure is simple and it is not dependent on which browser you use. The drawback is that it requires a few steps:

1. Download the document.
2. Open the downloaded document in your PDF-application of choice.
3. Edit the document and save your changes.
4. Upload the edited document to the same workspace from where you downloaded the document. A recommendation is to filter on all the metadata values that the document was tagged with, by clicking on all its metadata values in the document view. This way you do not need to fill in the document form again. As the document already exists in the workspace you need to click on the “Add version” button, when being prompted that there is a file-name conflict:
   
5. In MetaShare you will now see that the document’s version has been incremented with one version.

Method 2 – Open the document from File Explorer, edit it and save it

If you can access your documents from the File Explorer, you can easily edit PDF-document by following these steps:

1. Open the document from your File Explorer.
2. If your document is located in network location, you will first be prompted to check out the document, which you should (see the last section on this page for more information about this).
3. On Adobe Acrobat’s toolbar select the “Edit PDF” option:
   
4. Edit the document
5. In MetaShare you will now see that the document’s version has been incremented with one version.

Method 3 – Open the document from Adobe Acrobat

1. Open your Adobe Acrobat application.
2. Open your DPF document using one of these methods:
   • If you can access your documents from the File Explorer, you can easily open your PDF-document by:
     1. Click on “Home” > “My Computer”. Either you can find the location among your latest accessed locations or you have to click on the “Browse” button and navigate to the folder where you have your MetaShare documents:
        
     2. Open the PDF-document
     3. If your document is located in a network location, you will first be prompted to check out the document, which you should (see the last section on this page for more information about this).
     4. Edit and save the document.
     5. In MetaShare you will now see that the document’s version has been incremented with one version.
   • If you cannot access your documents from the File Explorer, you can open your PDF-document by adding a SharePoint account in Adobe Acrobat:
     1. Click on “Home” > “Add an Account” > “SharePoint Site”:
        
     2. This option will not give you access to all the locations that you have access to in Microsoft 365, you will have to specify the URL to a specific site:
        
        • Enter Account Name: Any name you want to give the account
        • Enter URL: Here you can add the URL to MetaShare’s SharePoint site or to to the document library in the SharePoint site (preferably). You can follow these instructions to grab the address to the SharePoint site/document library.
     3. You can now click on the “Account” that you created and open a document by double clicking it:
        
        Unfortunately there is no option to search for a document in this view, so if your document is in a workspace with many documents it can be quite difficult to find it.
     4. You will first be prompted to check out the document, which you should (see the last section on this page for more information about this).
     5. Edit and save and check in the document.
     6. In MetaShare you will now see that the document’s version has been incremented with one version.

Required check-out when opening a document

If you access a PDF document directly from SharePoint (when your documents are stored in a network location or if you open a file from a SharePoint account in Adobe Acrobat), you will be prompted to Check Out the document. This is how it works:

1. When you open the document you will prompted to either “Check Out & Open” (the default option) or “Open” the document:
   
   • Check Out & Open: If you select this option the document will first be checked out, before it is opened. For other users to later be able to edit the document, you have to check it in when you save your document (you will be asked to do so when you save the document).
   • Open: If you choose this option you will be able to edit the document but when you save the document you will be prompted to first check it out, so it does not make sense to select this option if you already know that you will be editing the document.
2. When you save the document you will be prompted to check in the document:
   
3. During the check in, you will be prompted to select a version for the edited document: