General tips for editing Sharepoint with Office 2003 Programs

Editing Sharepoint documents with Office 2007 products is easy. You navigate to the document in sharepoint then open it...if you wish to edit it there is a nice and large simple 'Edit' button in the top right of the Office application you are viewing the document with.

As appears to be standard with Microsoft products, to do it in older versions is a little more confusing. For a start, you will only be able to do it at all so long as you're using Office XP or above. For another, the only way you will be able to use Sharepoint at all with Office XP/2003 is by ensuring that you have installed the appropriate Office Sharepoint Tool in the first instance.

To do this the process (which may be slightly different dependant on opperating system or Office version) is to goto Control Pannel --> Add Remove Programs --> Select the change button within the place holder for your Version of Office --> Tick the 'Install Advanced features' tickbox --> Click Next --> Expand Office Tools --> Select the 'Run Component from My Computer' option for the Sharepoint Services --> Click update button at the bottom. Once this has been done you have the ability to at least use Sharepoint services.

The next issue you will run into is that you when you open a document, it will only open in 'Read Only' mode. If you edit the file you will find that when you come to saving it, the only option is to save a local copy to your HDD or other personal storrage areas.

To conquer this problem you will have to hold the mouse pointer over the file you wish to edit first to reveal a dropdown box. Once this has appeared, expand the options and select the 'Check Out' option from the list available to you. Confusingly, this will promote the document to the top of the list (if there are more than 1 in the repositry you are viewing). You can then simply click on the document to open it in edit mode.

When you then come to close it, select the 'Check In' option from the Sharepoint toolbar down the right edge of the screen and give an update as to what has been done with the document. Once this is complete, select the close button in the top right of the program window to comlete your operations for that particular session....SIMPLES!

A note for Sharepoint admins...I have also found that a certain kind fellow has posted a solution to this online. It is in the form of a Javascript that runs on the point of clicking the link to open a file. Instead of going directly to the file, the user is presented with a question box which asks them whether or not they wish to edit the document. This solution can be found at:

• Tonstegeman.com

As the programmer mentions, it could very well save on a great deal of tounge bashing down the phone as low skilled users have to figgure out how to do the above procedure.