Since cloud collaboration has become more and more common, it has brought many conveniences. You can directly share and edit online files with your team and partners, saving you the trouble of delivery, allowing you to have the latest and most real-time file version at any time. However, it is still a bit risky when collaborating with others. For example, the other party may delete the important content in the file by mistake, or the entire layout will run away due to an accidental operation error. Now Microsoft has added a new review mode to Microsoft Word to prevent this problem. appearance.
A new “Review Mode” has been added to Microsoft Word to avoid accidental deletion and unauthorized modification of content when sharing and collaborating.
In a shared document, multiple members at different levels will be involved, some of them are full authors, not only the owner of the document, but also can make any necessary modifications. In Microsoft’s latest official blog, the Office team announced a “Review Mode” that allows others to be invited only to review and provide suggestions for improvement. This mode is for the purpose of making workflow control easier and improving transparency, allowing you to cut different permissions for other sharers. When you open a pending file shared with you by others, the system automatically switches you to review mode. In review mode, you do not have full editing control, but allow suggestions to be added to the file in the form of comments, revisions, and then the file owner or other collaborators with full editing rights can merge the suggestions you have marked up as appropriate change into the file.
To set collaborator permissions for shared documents, follow these steps:
- To share any Word document for review, click the “Share” button, then click the “Share” command in the single-drop menu.
- In the web version of Word, Windows and macOS, increase the number of people who review the file, and set it to the permission of Can Review.
- Alternatively, you can access this option in “Additional Settings” in “Link Settings”. Collaborators listed in review mode will be opened in review mode after entering the file you shared.
However, review mode does have some limitations, for example it only works with files stored in OneDrive or OneDrive for Business. This means that this feature will not work with files stored in SharePoint repositories. Since the permissions of a SharePoint database file are set in priority order, even though the file is shared in review mode, it will still have permission to edit the content.
Review mode is currently available for Word on the web, as well as all Betas, Current Channel Previews, and Current Channel users for Windows and Mac. As for the ability to share documents for review through the “Can Review” option, it will start with the web version, and then gradually roll out to the Windows and Mac versions of Beta, Current Channel Preview) and Current Channel.