Real-Time Collaboration in Word 2016 Comes to OneDrive

Earlier this year, Microsoft added real-time collaboration to Word 2016 as part of the Office 2016 Preview, but only via SharePoint Online in Office 365. Now, the capability is available in OneDrive as well, opening up real-time collaboration to consumers.

Real-time collaboration is exactly what it sounds like: two or more users can work in the same document at the same time, and their cursor positions and text edits will appear near-instantly on each user’s screen.

To be clear, this functionality requires Word 2016 on the PC desktop, though you can also collaborate in real-time in Word Online on the web. Indeed, you can mix and match, so that one person is using Word 2016 and the other is using Word Online, or whatever.

If you’re using Word 2016, you should have already received the update that enables this feature, Microsoft says.

To start collaborating, Open a Word document and click Share in the upper-right of the application window and add a user. When they accept the invitation, they’re in, and they can edit the docuemtn concurrently with you using Word 2016 or Word Online. (The first time you do this, you will need to OK a prompt.)