Forum Discussion
Set preference of opening in Office Online or Office App
We would like to see some kind of preference that a user can set to open files from SharePoint directely in the Office Apps instead of Office Online when clicking on them. This saves an extra click, and makes that SharePoint isn't showing many tabs for all opened documents (and next to that our users prefer to working in the Office Apps).
- On the Document Library Settings page, choose Advanced settings.
On the Advanced Settings page, in Opening Document in the Browser, select one of the following options:
Open in the client application When a user chooses a document in this library, the document will open in the corresponding client application if it's available.
Open in the browser When a user chooses a document in this library, the document will open in the web browser in the web app for that document type. When the document is opened in the web app, the user can then decide to open the document in the client application.
Use the server default When a user chooses a document in this library, the document will open by using the default open behavior specified for the server
- On the Document Library Settings page, choose Advanced settings.
On the Advanced Settings page, in Opening Document in the Browser, select one of the following options:
Open in the client application When a user chooses a document in this library, the document will open in the corresponding client application if it's available.
Open in the browser When a user chooses a document in this library, the document will open in the web browser in the web app for that document type. When the document is opened in the web app, the user can then decide to open the document in the client application.
Use the server default When a user chooses a document in this library, the document will open by using the default open behavior specified for the server- Alternatively, you could write some code to do this configuration in an automatic fashion
I've also found the option 'Open Documents in Client Applications by Default' on the Site Collection Features page, which does the same for the entire Site Collection (which is what we wanted). Thanks for you reply, you pointed me in the right direction :-)
I found that that setting only works in IE and Firefox but not for Chrome or Edge.
In Chrome or Edge, the document is opened/created using Office Web app irrespective of the setting.
Has anyone experienced the same?
I am using Windows 10.
ViGuru Greetings!
You can follow the instructions given on https://www.syvantis.com/blog/onedrive-opening-online .
The usual warning: The given link redirects to a non-Microsoft website. Proceed at your own risk.BTW the website is pretty safe, nothing to worry about 😉 .
Ya'll got screwed here by Microsoft. there is no option. I checked everywhere. the options presented by others in this list, either do not work in Chrome, or they are only specific to admins of each sharepoint list, and nobody wants to force it on all users. this should be a user specific Microsoft Office setting... We are all stuck with the annoying extra two clicks. one to click dot dot dot.. one click to click "open with" one click open in app. **bleep** thats 3 clicks. Microsoft you plonkers. what the. good to see 293,000 others have come here looking for an answer too. some companies have no idea what their customers need.
For copied or shared links, Msft could fix this easily. Since links that start with the http protocol are going to open in your default browser, Msft could simply add an option to choose "open in app" to the various sharing functions, and format links to start with "ms-word:ofe|u|....". So a link would look like "ms-word:ofe|u|https://linkstuffhere".
Since Msft is unlikely to fix something users actually ask for, I suppose you could also generate this format yourself with a Flow, or a calculated column, or even rewrite web parts like quick links to do it using the SPFx framework.
You can also ... Right click on the file, and select whether to ...
1) open in Excel/Word/etc OR
2) open in Excel/Word/etc Online.
Unless that is the extra click you were trying to avoid.
- that's the extra click they're asking about O:-)
I have educated my users to right-click on the file, select OPEN, select OPEN IN APP. While not perfect, it is a work-around that I am OK with. Or I have users navigate from the desktop app (excel etc), using recent, or drilling into the SP site to retrieve and save their file.
- Hi there, may ia ask how do you change from opening microsoft word/PP/Excel in Desktop version instead of the browser ones. I'm really having a hard time to try and change the setting but to no available. I even tried to click the 'Open in Destop' version but its still won't allow me to open in the desktop version. Hope you can help me out, Thank you in advanced!
Sonny Gillissen I have figured out how to do this but it seems to be doing it for everyone in the organisation. Is it possible to do this per user as the team do not all want the same thing?
