Work on a file together

A spreadsheet open in two places is shared as you work. A Word document is handed between you, one person at a time.

When you and a teammate have the same spreadsheet open, you see each other in it. Beside the file's name sits a colored initial for everyone else in the sheet, and their cursor, selection and edits appear in that same color as they work.

How shared editing works

• Edits are visible to everyone the moment they're made, saved or not.
• Save to file writes the file for everyone. After a save, that's the version every viewer and the terminal sees.
• Reset returns your own edits to the saved state; each person's Reset applies to their own.

Editing needs no coordination; saving does. Agree on one person to save, so nobody writes the file over work the others are still mid-way through.

Live and Paused

A Live/Paused control appears beside the file's name while someone else is in the sheet. Pause it to hold the sheet still while you read; while paused, their edits don't change your view, and resuming brings you up to the current state at once. Pausing only affects what you see: your own edits and cursor keep reaching your teammates.

When the terminal writes

If the terminal writes to a spreadsheet you have open, editing pauses and "Syncing agent changes… editing paused" appears. When the write lands, the sheet shows the changes and editing resumes for everyone, so your edits and the terminal's don't land on top of each other.

Word documents

A Word document is edited by one person at a time. Edits aren't shared as you make them there: each of you works from the copy you opened, and a save is refused once the file has changed underneath it, so the second person to save gets their edits held back rather than written. Agree who has the document before either of you starts.

Next steps

• Editing in the preview: how edits, saves, and refused saves work.
• Recover files: every save, by anyone, creates a version you can return to.