MS Word and Google

Using Microsoft Office documents in Google Drive is possible, but can be tricky.

It is certainly easier to just work on joint documents in G drive if they are G docs and work on joint Microsoft documents on a network drive.  Some notes on what happens when you do that:
  • When two people are editing a Google doc, it will show what each is typing and you can see the revision history.  All changes are being saved automatically
  • When two people try to work in a Word document, Word will only let one edit at a time.  The second one trying to open it will receive a message saying who has it open, and say you can only have a "read only" copy. 
If you try to share a Word document on Google, you can, but if someone opens it, the default is in Google docs and it will make a new copy as a Google Doc and people then can get confused on which is the latest version.  
You can get a Chrome browser add on, that allows you to edit the Word document and it will stay a Word document. But, you can't have two people edit that document.  Google says:  To edit Microsoft Office files with others, you'll need to convert them to Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

Documents on the K drive are backed up by IT nightly and kept for 2 weeks
Documents on Google drive that are deleted are kept in Google's trashcan until you permanently delete them. 


So again I would say it is easier and better to just work on joint documents in G drive if they are G docs and work on joint Microsoft documents on a network drive.
But if you want to try working with Office docs on Google drive here are some links:
    1. One version of instructions
    2. Another version   
    3. Video of Managing Revisions of non Google files in Google Drive
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