Cannot edit Word documents in Teams

Anonymous
2020-03-24T22:23:58+00:00

I've lost the ability to edit Word documents in Teams.  Is there anything I can do to fix that?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2020-03-27T03:14:33+00:00

Hi All

Thanks for all the feedback here.

We would like to inform that this change is just a temporary adjustment due to the COVIN-19.

You can get more information or keep track of this change in the message center:

To open the Message center, first, make sure that you have selected the Try the new admin center toggle on the admin center Home page, and then go to Health > Message center to check the post (MC 207443).

We will continue to monitor our Microsoft 365 services on an ongoing basis and share any further updates here.

Meanwhile, only the Office 365 Education license is affected by this change, if you are working with a different license but still have the same issue, or there is any other issue when using Teams or edit document online due to this change, we suggest you post a new thread on our community and we will keep working for you.

We highly appreciate your understanding. Please do take care during this specific period.

Best Regards

Higgins

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-03-26T07:59:37+00:00

    Hi All,

    Sorry for the convenience caused by this change.

    To best support our Microsoft 365 Education customers worldwide and accommodate new growth and demand during these unprecedented times, we are making a temporary adjustment to Word document behavior within Microsoft Teams for students and teachers.

    As an Office 365 education user, when you try to open Word document in Teams, the default mode will switch to a read-only view instead. To edit the document, users need to click on the options in the top right of the white bar above the document content and select "Open in Browser" or (for users with Office for Windows installed on their device) "Open in Desktop App". This will open the document in Office in a separate window from Teams and allow the user to make changes.

    We truly hope that we can notify you proactively so that you can continue to understand how to edit your Word documents in Microsoft Teams without interruption.

    We hope that the information above will be helpful to you.

    Thanks for your support and cooperation.

    Best Regards,

    Higgins

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-03-26T08:46:16+00:00

    I am neither a student nor a teacher. We are a non-profit that has already been using Teams before this COVID-19 situation. So, is the change across the board for everyone?

    Thank you for your help.

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  3. Anonymous
    2020-03-26T09:25:39+00:00

    Hi, 

    Thanks for you reply. 

    As an MS Teams admin at my university, I am surprised about this step. 

    Does this mean that we have to notify everyone that editing Word Documents directly in Teams will no longer be possible? 

    Or is this just a temporary default setting? 

    As the procedure to edit is not the same for Excel and PowerPoint files, this is NOT AT ALL intuitive for education users (students and less tech-savvy staff included). 

    -> not explained in any training videos

    -> not explained in any handbooks 

    It would be ESSENTIAL to proactively inform a user about how to edit Word Documents from now on. 

    Thank you fro answering our questions!

    Best wishes

    Christina

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-03-26T09:44:12+00:00

    Apologies, I voted your contribution one star only. Should have been five star: your message was very helpful. The Microsoft decision (and the communication about it) are not, making the Teams app effectively useless for my purposes.

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