How to open a document

Documents are always opened in read-only mode, in your preferred application but if you haven’t made a preference yet, documents will by default open in the browser. The preferred application to open Office documents in, is set per user and browser session, making it possible for you to have different preferences on your laptop as opposed to your mobile device.

How to open a document

1. Click anywhere on the document’s name:
   
2. Depending on what file type you are opening, the document opens in different applications:
   1. Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and OneNote)
      1. If your preferred application is set to “Open in the browser”, the document will open in a new browser tab, in Office Web Apps, in read-only mode.
      2. If your preferred application is set to “Open in app”, the document will open in the Desktop app that is associated with the file type, in read-only mode.
   2. If the document’s file type is supported for previewing, the document will open in a new browser tab, in SharePoint’s file viewer.
   3. File types that are not supported in SharePoint for previewing are downloaded so that you later can open it with any application that you have on your device.

How to change your preferred application

These file types can be opened in a Desktop app:

1. Word (docx, dotx, docm, dotm, doc, dot, odt)
2. Excel (xlsx, xlsb, xlsm, xls, csv, ods)
3. PowerPoint (pptx, ppsx, potx, ppsm, potm, pptm, ppt, pps, pot, odp)
4. Visio (vsdx, vsdm, vsd, vdw)

To get MetaShare to open these files in the Desktop app do the following:

1. Select the document and click on the “Open in” function, on the horizontal toolbar:
   
2. You will now get the option to choose which application to open the document in, by clicking on any of the two button (“Open in browser” or “Open in app”) and if you also mark the checkbox “Always use this option when clicking on a file’s name”, MetaShare will remember your preference, for the device that you are working on:
   
3. If you marked the checkbox “Always use this option when clicking on a file’s name”, the next time you click on a document’s name, it will open in your preferred application:
   

Note

1. If you get annoying prompts when opening your documents:
   
   Depending on which browser you are using, here you find information on how to remove them:
   1. Microsoft Edge does not save preferences when opening documents
   2. Google Chrome does not save preferences when opening documents
2. If you get this annoying warning when opening your documents:
   
   Then look at this page for information about recommended browser settings for MetaShare.
3. If you are using MetaShare Server, you will just be able to open limited amounts of file-types, in SharePoint’s file viewer, as SharePoint server (on-prem) does not support previewing files in SharePoint’s file viewer.