Forum Discussion
Document in "Read-only" mode all the time
Another person with this, or certainly a similar problem (I'm working with a document that I've opened via the Browser, not the OneDrive sync client). I'm working on a customer site (using their wifi to connect to their SP Online tenant from my laptop that I've logged into using my organisational account)
Scenario is where I've worked on some documents in my OneDrive and when completed the first draft I've uploaded these Word documents to a SharePoint library on my customers tenant where they have reviewed.
They've provided feedback and I now need to update the document. I can only edit the document in Word Online.
Each time I click the "edit in word" button , the document will open in the Word client but only ever as (Read Only).
I can save as and overwrite the server copy but the document in Word still is a (Read-only) document.
My collaborator on the Customer side has closed out of the document and has repeated the same steps as I on his machine. The document opens up on his machine , in Word , for editing.
I'll have to continue to use Word Online. which is not idea as I want to copy and paste in some screenshots into the document , and Word Online is not allowing me to do this! - advising me that i can only upload image files stored on my machine and not copy and paste :(
I've heard other people complaining about this issue before.. Any ideas what the solution is or why it's happening? It's hardly "by design" is it?
Colm Counihan Did you try this fix?
I could fix this problem by removing all credentials starting with "MicrosoftOffice2016" in Control Panel\User Accounts\Credential Manager.
Roger Schmidt Thanks!
I have 21 credentials for MicrosoftOffice16 and another 2 for MicrosoftOffice15 (the latter 2 are associated with specific logins I have on a customer tenant)
I removed the 2 Office15 credentials first (I didn't fancy removing all 21 Office16 credentials)... and it worked.
Perhaps the combination of the Office15 and Office16 credentials were the cause of the issue? (I'm only basing this on your suggestion solving the problem.. I wouldn't have even thought to look in "credential manager" tbh)
Thanks again
I am also experiencing the same issue and remove the Office credentials.
User is required to sign into the office app again but the issue remains.
File is still read-only in Office app.
apkoh18 I was able to solve this issue by disabling the "File Check Out" feature on the sharepoint site/library
We have been having a similar problem with SharePoint Online and Office 365.
We have a document library that is configured to require check-out to edit documents.
Workflows send out an email with a link and the user clicks on the link to open a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet is opened in the desktop application with a yellow bar "READ-ONLY We open this workbook read-only from the server. [Edit Workbook]".
If the user clicks on [Edit Workbook] the file can be edited but can't be saved back to SharePoint because it is not in the check-out state.
If we go to the library in Edge and click on the spreadsheet it opens in the desktop app and presents a yellow bar "CHECK OUT REQUIRED To modify this server workbook, you must check it out [CHECK OUT]".
If the user clicks [CHECK OUT] they can edit the spreadsheet and save it back to SharePoint.
If I get a link for the spreadsheet by right clicking and choosing get link and then send this link to someone, when they click on the link the spreadsheet opens in the online version of Excel.
The library setting is "Use the server default (Open in the client application)" so this behaviour is not the desired behaviour.
This inconsistency is very confusing for people using SharePoint.
