Many Cooks

Third-Party Formats

Onlyoffice internally works with the Office Open XML (OOXML) format developed by Microsoft. However, the software converts older Microsoft formats, ODF as well as PDF, HTML, or RTF.

When uploading a document to Onlyoffice Online Editors, users can also specify individually for all files whether they want to store files in the current source format. If you check the box to enable this function, the software saves the respective file in the cloud in the original file format in addition to the OOXML format.

When downloading a file, you can use the Download or Download as options in the file manager. In the case of a conventional download, Onlyoffice saves the marked file in OOXML format on the local workstation. The Download as option additionally offers to convert to another supported file format in a selection field (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Onlyoffice prefers OOXML but is also familiar with many other formats.

The results of the conversion from OOXML to ODF are impressive even with more demanding layouts. In most cases, however, you will need to make some simple manual adjustments to the documents. This is also true for converting in the opposite direction.

Teamwork

Onlyoffice Online Editors supports a collaborative work approach on documents through individual File Sharing . The user can share any file in the file manager by clicking the corresponding button. It can be found to the right of each file name. The software supports the release for individual users but also for user groups.

The program displays a small dialog where you stipulate the users and groups with whom you want to share a file. In the Document Editor, you will also see the Collaboration option in the menubar (Figure 10). This option provides a wealth of options for editing the document with several users.

Figure 10: In Onlyoffice, a tab with a menubar groups all the tools for teamwork.

Editing Modes

Onlyoffice supports two modes for editing documents collaboratively. In the Collaboration ribbon bar, you can click on Set Collaboration Edit Mode to choose whether to save all changes immediately or trigger saving manually. If you enable Fast mode by checking this option, the software automatically saves all changes in real time. The Formal option, on the other hand, expects the user to save the document manually in order to synchronize it with the other editors.