Microsoft will add a new feature to Excel to allows adding co-authors to protected files

Based on security considerations, Microsoft has supported setting password protection for office documents many years ago. The inability to open the document without a password can protect the confidentiality of the document. Of course, this protection mechanism can sometimes cause inconvenience to users.

The online version of Office does not directly support the sharing of documents with passwords, but Microsoft is also thinking of potential solutions for the inconvenient operation.

For example, in the case of setting a password, you can still add a shared author, so that even with a password, only specific users can edit to ensure document security.

In the latest development roadmap, Microsoft mentioned that it will add support for the co-authoring of protected files to both web and desktop.

This makes it more convenient to share documents containing confidential information, and the co-authors set by users can edit documents without knowing the password to facilitate the joint operation of users.

According to Microsoft’s instructions, this feature will support both desktop and online versions of Excel. It is unknown whether other office components such as Word and PowerPoint will support it.

In addition, Microsoft also plans to add Rich Text Formatting (RTF) support to Excel cells. With rich text format support, users can make richer customizations.

These new features are expected to be released in the beta version at the beginning of next year. After the test is completed, Microsoft will push the new features to all users through back-end server updates.

By the way, Microsoft did not mention whether the mobile version of Excel supports this feature, but after all, it stands to reason that the mobile version will eventually support it.

Via: Neowin