How to Edit Documents in Office Online

Learn how to edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents directly in your browser using Microsoft Office Online integration in Govenda.

Opening a document for editing

1. Open the document in Govenda.
2. Look for the Edit in Microsoft Office (Excel, PowerPoint, Word) button in the tool bar. 
3. The document will open in the Microsoft Office Online editor in a new tab.

Note: This feature requires the native document storage feature to be enabled for your organization. Native document storage must be enabled prior to the document upload.

Editing

Make your changes directly in the Office Online editor. Changes are saved automatically as you type — there's no manual save step.

Closing the editor properly

When you're done editing, close the Office Online editor tab before navigating away. This ends the editing session and updates the file in Govenda.

Version history

After editing, the new version of the document is saved. You can view previous versions through the file history option if available.

From the file history page, you can restore a previous version by clicking Make Current Version.

Annotations vs. native editing

These are two separate features with separate permissions:

• Annotations (highlight, underline, notes, etc.) are added through the PDF viewer.
• Native editing (changing the actual document content) is done through Office Online.

Your administrator controls which features are available to you.

When editing is not available

You may not be able to edit if:

• The file is locked by another user — wait up to 30 minutes.
• Your organization doesn't have the native document storage feature enabled.
• Your plan does not include Microsoft 365 (contact Govenda support at support@govenda.com for more details)
• The file format doesn't support online editing.