Welcome to the Microsoft co-authoring beta for Dropbox space. If you’re here, you might already know that we are looking for feedback on our new desktop co-authoring tool. Any feedback you can share with us will be invaluable as we continue to work on this experience, so you can have your say now. If that sounds interesting to you, below are some of the guidelines for how to enable co-authoring and how to report your findings.
To get started, add Dropbox as a Place (Windows) or Storage account (Mac). To do so:
- Open Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel on your desktop.
- Click File.
- Click Open.
- Click Add a Place (Windows) or Manage Storage Accounts (Mac).
- Click Dropbox (Beta).
- Log in with your Dropbox credentials.
- Click Log in.
This will now add Dropbox as a location to open and save files.
You will need the following in order to use the co-authoring function:
- Office 365 Business license is required
- Perpetual licenses (e.g., Office 2016, 2019 etc.) are not supported.
- Customers must be on a Dropbox Standard, Advanced, Business, Business Plus, or Enterprise plan.
We’re aware of some issues already, listed below, so no need to share these ones, but if you see anything additional or have feedback on these, please report that:
- Files larger than 100 MB will be slow – especially if you have many other programs open at once. You cannot open files larger than 250 MB.
- If you’re collaborating with external partners (or anyone without co-authoring), they need to have co-authoring enabled to edit on web. If not, they’ll be able to open a “view-only” copy.
- If there are issues opening files directly from File Explorer or Finder, please try opening files inside Office 365 apps to start co-authoring.
- After adding Dropbox (Beta) - all other open Office applications should be restarted (to avoid necessity of signing-in multiple times)
- OAuth flow on mobile is a bit tricky. It will try to open the Dropbox app after you enter your email. You need to hit cancel in the top left and continue the OAuth flow inside the office app
- If Dropbox (Beta) is not present on mobile devices (iOS, Android) after successful sign in to Microsoft account - please restart application.
- For co-authoring Word Doc on MacOS - there is some lag for live edits (by other authors) to be shown regardless of the file size. This is especially true when just starting a session.
- Once users connect Dropbox storage inside Office 365 apps to enable co-authoring, Dropbox Badge will no longer be supported
We truly appreciate you testing this beta, and please share any and all feedback with us so that we can make desktop co-authoring experience the best it can be.
Thank you for sharing your experience with us.
