Office 2010 Web Apps For Dummies®

Chapter 7. Collaborating, or Coauthoring, with Others on SkyDrive

In This Chapter

• Looking at how to share folders and files

• Finding friends on Windows Live

• Understanding what public, shared, private, and linked folders are

• Making a folder public, shared, or private

• Strategies for sharing public and shared folders

• Writing descriptions and comments about shared files

• Working alongside others in Office Web Apps and Office 2010 programs

One of the great advantages of SkyDrive is being able to share and work on Office files with other people. Microsoft uses the term coauthoring to describe what happens when more than one person works on a file that is stored on SkyDrive. As long as all parties have Windows Live accounts and all have permission to edit a file, they can edit it.

This chapter explores ways to share folders on Windows Live. It shows you how to determine who does and doesn't get into a folder you keep on SkyDrive and how to invite others to coauthor files in your folders. It describes what coauthoring a file means and what to do when you get locked out of a file and can't edit it.

Ways of Sharing Folders

This is the first thing you need to know if you want to share and coauthor files with others on SkyDrive: Only people who have signed up with Windows Live can edit files.

Here is the second thing you need to know: The owner of a folder decides whether the folder is public, shared, or private, and for anyone besides the owner to work on a file, it must be in a public or shared folder. ...