Collaboration

In LibreOffice Writer, Impress, and Draw, only one user at a time can open any document for writing. In Calc, many users can open the same spreadsheet for writing at the same time.

Collaboration in Calc

In LibreOffice Calc, document sharing allows simultaneous write access for many users. Every user who wants to collaborate should enter a name on the - LibreOffice - User Data tab page.

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Some commands are not available (grayed out) when change tracking or document sharing is activated. For a new spreadsheet you cannot apply or insert the grayed out elements.


Creating a new spreadsheet

User A creates a new spreadsheet document. The following conditions can apply:

The Tools - Share Document command can be used to switch the mode for the current document from unshared mode to shared mode. If you want to use a shared document in unshared mode, you would save the shared document using another name or path. This creates a copy of the spreadsheet that is not shared.

Opening a spreadsheet

User A opens a spreadsheet document. The following conditions can apply:

Saving a shared spreadsheet document

User A saves a shared document. The following conditions can apply:

When a user successfully saves a shared spreadsheet, the document will be reloaded after the save command, so that the spreadsheet shows the latest version of all changes that got saved by all users. A message shows that "foreign changes have been added" when another user did change some contents.

Collaboration in Writer, Impress, and Draw

For all modules Writer, Impress, Draw, and for Calc when document sharing is not enabled, a file locking is possible. This file locking is available even when accessing the same document from different operating systems:

User A opens a document. The following conditions can apply:

User access permissions and sharing documents

Some conditions must be met on operating systems with a user permission management.

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Write access also enables other users to (accidentally or deliberately) delete or change a file.