Product · Documents
Office documents,
edited together online.
Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations that several people can edit at once, stored alongside the rest of the organization’s files and built on established open-source office suites.
Project status Document editing is planned for the core-services phase. The office editors are candidates under evaluation; nothing on this page is available yet.
What it replaces
Everyday use of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and of Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.
Most business documents are not exotic. They are letters, proposals, policies, reports, budgets, price lists, project trackers and slide decks for a board meeting. They need styles, tables, headers and footers, formulas, charts, comments and tracked changes, and they need to be shared with the right people and found again next year. That is the work this service is designed for.
Office Unbound does not write its own office suite. Rendering and editing Office files faithfully is one of the hardest problems in productivity software, and two mature open-source editors already do it in the browser. The Office Unbound work is to integrate one of them with file storage, identity, sharing and administration, so that opening a document is the same experience as opening any other file in the platform.
Because documents are stored as ordinary files in the organization’s own storage, they are not locked into the editor. They can be synced to a laptop, opened in a desktop application, exported, backed up and migrated like any other file.
Intended capabilities
What the documents service is being designed to provide. Each line shows its current status; none is available yet.
- Available Available and verified in a release
- In development Being built now
- Planned In the roadmap, not yet started
- Under evaluation Being assessed; not yet selected
| Capability | What it means | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Word processing | Documents with styles, tables, images, headers and footers, page layout and tracked changes. | Planned |
| Spreadsheets | Workbooks with formulas, functions, charts, filters, conditional formatting and multiple sheets. | Planned |
| Presentations | Slide decks with layouts, master slides, speaker notes and presenter view. | Planned |
| Real-time co-editing | Several people editing the same file at once, with their cursors and changes visible. | Planned |
| Comments and mentions | Comments on a passage, cell or slide, with replies and notification of the person mentioned. | Planned |
| Version history | Earlier versions of a document listed, compared and restored from file storage. | Planned |
| Templates | Organization-wide templates for letters, reports and decks, managed by administrators. | Planned |
| Office-format import and export | Opening and saving DOCX, XLSX and PPTX, alongside OpenDocument formats. | Planned |
| PDF export | Conversion of documents, sheets and slides to PDF for distribution and archiving. | Planned |
| Sharing and permissions | View, comment and edit rights for people, groups and, where policy allows, external guests. | Planned |
| Team workspaces | Shared folders for a team or department, with documents opened in place. | Planned |
| Desktop and offline editing | Editing synced files in a desktop office application when offline. | Planned |
| Native Google formats | Google Docs, Sheets and Slides converted to Office or OpenDocument formats during migration. | Planned |
| Editor selection | Choice between Collabora Online and ONLYOFFICE Docs as the browser editor. | Under evaluation |
Office-format compatibility
The question every evaluation starts with. The honest answer is that it depends on what is in the file, and the platform will say which kinds of files to test before relying on it.
| Content | Expectation | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Text, styles, tables, images, headers and footers | Generally reliable | The core of the formats, and what both candidate editors handle every day. |
| Comments and tracked changes | Generally reliable | Supported by both candidates, though review workflows may look different from Word’s. |
| Everyday formulas, charts and conditional formatting | Generally reliable | Common functions are supported; less common functions and chart types should be checked. |
| Complex layouts and precise pagination | Test first | Line breaks and page flow can shift, especially where documents use fonts that are not installed on the server. |
| Pivot tables, advanced chart types, SmartArt | Test first | Support exists in varying degrees; files may open correctly but edit differently. |
| Embedded objects and linked files | Test first | Objects from other applications may display as images or not at all. |
| VBA macros | Not expected to work | Browser editors do not run VBA as Office does. Macro-driven workbooks need rewriting or a desktop application. |
| Power Query, data models, add-ins | Not expected to work | These are Microsoft-specific features with no open-source equivalent in these editors. |
| Native Google Docs, Sheets, Slides | Conversion required | Google’s native files are not Office files. They are exported and converted, and some formatting or formulas may change. |
Office Unbound does not claim universal compatibility with Microsoft Office files. Advanced macros, proprietary features, complex formatting and some specialized Word, Excel and PowerPoint functionality may not survive a round trip intact. The table above describes general expectations of the candidate editors, not tested results for Office Unbound.
The practical approach is to find the difficult files before a migration rather than after it. The planned migration assessment is intended to flag workbooks with macros, very large files and formats that need conversion, so that a business knows which documents to test with the people who use them.
For the small number of files that genuinely need Microsoft Office, nothing stops an organization from keeping desktop Office licenses for the people who need them and opening those files from synced storage.
Technology under evaluation
Two capable browser editors with different strengths. One will be selected; supporting both is not a goal.
- Collabora Online
- Browser editing built on LibreOffice technology, with OpenDocument as its native format and Office formats through LibreOffice’s import and export filters. Integrates with file platforms such as Nextcloud through the WOPI protocol. Rendering happens on the server, which keeps documents off client devices but makes server capacity important. Under evaluation
- ONLYOFFICE Docs
- Browser editors that work natively in Office Open XML formats (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX) and render in the browser. Often regarded as closer to Microsoft Office in layout and interface, and also integrates with Nextcloud. Its licensing and the features of its community edition need careful review for multi-tenant use. Under evaluation
- LibreOffice
- The established desktop office suite for Windows, macOS and Linux. A candidate for offline and desktop editing of synced files, and the engine behind Collabora Online. Under evaluation
Selection criteria include Office-format fidelity on real business files, co-editing behavior, server resource use, multi-tenant support, integration with the file platform, accessibility and licensing terms. See Technology stack and licensing.
How editing fits the platform
The file lives in storage
A document is an ordinary file in someone’s personal folder or a team workspace, with that folder’s permissions and quota.
The editor opens it in place
Opening the file in the browser hands it to the office editor, which checks with the platform who the user is and whether they may view, comment or edit.
Others join the same session
Colleagues opening the same file join the editing session and see each other’s changes as they type.
Saves become versions
Saved changes are written back to storage as a new version, so earlier states remain recoverable through file version history.
The file stays portable
The same file syncs to the desktop client, can be downloaded or converted to PDF, and is included in exports and backups.
Sharing, permissions and templates
Document permissions are file permissions. A document in the Finance workspace is editable by the Finance group because that folder is, not because of a separate setting inside the editor. Sharing a document with a colleague, a group or an external guest follows the same rules — and the same administrative limits — as sharing any other file.
Templates are intended to be managed centrally: a letterhead, a report layout, a branded slide master, published once by an administrator and offered to everyone when they create a new document. Organizations moving from Microsoft 365 will usually need to convert their existing DOTX and POTX templates and check them, which is a good first test of format compatibility.
Desktop and offline work
Browser editing needs a connection to the server. For work without one, documents can be synced to a laptop with the desktop client and edited in a desktop application such as LibreOffice — or Microsoft Office, where an organization keeps it. Changes upload when the connection returns.
Real-time co-editing does not happen offline. If two people edit the same synced file separately, the sync client has to keep both copies and report a conflict for someone to resolve. The files and sync page describes how that is handled.
Coming from Office or Google
Files stored in OneDrive and SharePoint are already Office files and move as files, with folder structure and supported metadata. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides are different: they exist only inside Google and have to be exported and converted, usually to DOCX, XLSX and PPTX. The planned migration tooling is designed to convert them, check the results where it can, and report which files changed in ways a person should look at. Comment threads and editing history may not transfer.
Worried about your hardest files?
Tell us which kinds of documents your organization depends on. Real examples of difficult workbooks and templates shape what gets tested.