Edit a Word document here
The Word editor opens a .docx from a matter, an issued letter or an email. It saves the file back without leaving the app, on a computer or a phone.
On this page
Open a Word document
On a matter’s OneDrive files, click Edit here beside a Word document. Edit in Word beside it still opens Word for the web.
On a record’s Documents, click Edit beside a .docx.
On a matter’s Precedents tab, click Edit here beside an issued letter that kept its Word version.
On a matter’s Emails tab, click Edit beside a .docx attachment.
Edit it
The document opens in its own fonts, styles, numbering and tables. Type as you would in Word.
The toolbar has Word’s tabs: Home, Insert, Layout, Review and View. A Table tab joins them while the cursor is in a table.
Home has the style, font, size and colour, Bold, Italic, the underlines and strikethroughs, highlight, caps and Change case. It also has Bullets, Numbering, the indents, the alignments, line spacing and Paragraph settings.
Insert adds a page break, a table, a link, a symbol, today’s date or a non-breaking space. Layout sets the margins, orientation and paper size.
View zooms, fits the page to the window, switches to Web layout or Read mode, and opens Navigation, a list of the document’s headings.
Word’s shortcuts work too. Ctrl+] and Ctrl+[ change the size, and Ctrl+M indents. Ctrl+Enter adds a page break, and F4 repeats the last change.
In a numbered or bulleted list, Enter in an empty item ends the list. Tab and Shift+Tab change an item’s level. Backspace at the start of an item removes its number, and a second Backspace removes its indent.
Shaded text is a field, a bookmark, a tracked change or a picture. The editor shows it and keeps it exactly as it was, but you change it in Word.
Track changes and review them
Click Review, then Track changes. While it says Tracking on, what you type shows as an insertion and what you delete stays, struck through, as a deletion.
Your name goes on every change, and Word shows the same changes when it opens the file.
Click Accept or Reject for the change at the cursor, or Accept all and Reject all for every change. The arrows move to the previous and next change.
Display for review shows All markup, Simple markup, No markup or the Original before any change.
Click Changes for the Reviewing pane, which lists each change with its author and time and its own Accept and Reject.
Comment on a document
Select the words, then click New comment on the Review or Insert tab. Type the comment and click Add comment.
The pane lists every comment in order. Click one to select the words it concerns.
Type in Reply and click Reply to answer a comment. Resolve marks it done, and Delete removes it with its replies.
Find, replace and copy formatting
Press Ctrl+F to find, or Ctrl+H to find and replace. The editor highlights every match, and Replace all says how many it changed.
Click Format Painter, then select the text that should look the same. Ctrl+Shift+C copies the formatting without the button.
Print it or make a PDF
Click the printer for the browser’s print dialog, set to the document’s own paper size and margins. Choose Save as PDF there to make a PDF.
Click the disk with a plus to save a copy beside the original, where the document came from OneDrive or Documents.
Save it
Click Save, or press Ctrl+S. The line beside Save says where it went.
A file from OneDrive or Documents is saved over itself. An issued letter or an email attachment stays as it was, and Save puts an edited copy in the matter’s documents. A second Save replaces that copy.
Only the paragraphs you changed are rewritten. Everything else in the file comes back exactly as it was.
Edit on a phone
The same editor works in a phone’s browser. The text fits the screen, and the toolbar sits at the bottom with Save always in reach. Swipe the toolbar sideways for the other buttons.