Forum Discussion
SharePoint Creates a New Document Version After Printing
Hello All,
We're experiencing an issue with version control in SharePoint. Here is the scenario:
Our users are in SharePoint Online major/minor version controlled document libraries. They are opening Office 365 documents (Word, Excel, etc.) in the web app in view-only mode. They are making no changes to the files — just selecting File > Print. The action of printing is creating a new version of the file (ex: 3.0 to 3.1). This is causing issues with the document statues. After a new version is created, the file status is updated from Approved to Draft. But there was no change to the file to warrant a new version. Lastly, the new version is only created if the user is printing from the web app (Word, Excel, etc.). If they open the file in their desktop app, the document is not marked as modifed.
After reaching out to Microsoft, we were informed this is a new "expected behavior". Quote from Microsoft: "From SharePoint’s perspective, printing = modifying, so this is not considered a bug but expected product behavior. When a document is printed from Office for the web (Word/Excel/PowerPoint Online), SharePoint treats this action as a file modification."
Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Have you discovered a way to prevent this from happening?
1 Reply
If you have set the property “Always open in read‑only mode” and then Print, it does not create a new version. You can follow the instructions below to ensure the document always opens in read‑only mode.
Sharepoint - Prevent a new version each time a document is read | Microsoft Community Hub
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