Best Practice: working with Non-Office filetypes (e.g. pdf, dwg, ai)

Copper Contributor

Hello all,

 

still trying to wrap my head around Sharepoint and how I can properly introduce it in my organization.

One thing I just don't understand is how to combine the (fantastic) idea of file metadata and a small amount of folders with files that do not open in the online office apps?

 

Scenario:

A library with lots of pdfs, dwgs and a few Excel spreadsheets is nicely organized with metadata (Customer, Project, Approval Status, etc.) but some file have to be opened in a desktop app (e.g. Adobe Illustrator). 

 

Current workflow:

Option a - download the file (which ends up as a copy in the download folder with no ties to the Sharepoint file) and re-upload the file after working with it. 

 

Option b - sync the Library with the File Explorer, which means losing all custom metadata and having to dig through 500 files looking for the one I would like to edit.

 

How would you go about it? Microsoft must have thought about this. I hope?

1 Reply

@YAGeo did you find a good solution to work with non-office files without losing the metadata or the link to the original file? Thank you!