One of the major frustrations bugging me for ages is how Microsoft Teams and Edge default to open documents, spreadsheets, and presentation files within those apps. This is really annoying, restricting usage of the apps with more limited functionality and viewing space. In this blog, I’ll show you the settings to turn this off and view things in the ‘desktop’ version of the app, not the ‘web’ or ‘Teams’ versions.
Documents Open WITHIN Teams, SharePoint, Browser… Annoying!
So for the umpteenth time the other day, someone shared a file with me in MS Teams. Teams is a really useful communication platform, but I hate how by default it forces you to view files within the app window when opening them. When opening files, a kind of ‘lite’ version of the app appears, with an annoyingly different user interface to the desktop (i.e. ‘full’) app.
For example and as shown above, this is especially annoying with Excel. When you know Excel, you’ll be bemused navigating round the different and restrictive ribbon, with a very limited working window because the Teams window is still taking up a portion of the screen. Excel windows in Teams windows is just too many windows for my liking.
Now you may have figured out that if someone sends you a document in a Teams chat, you can open it in the proper app (not Teams). As shown below, click the magic three dots ( . . . ) for more options, choose ‘Open in’ and then the Excel/Word/PowerPoint desktop app.
There is however a way you can STOP Teams from doing this full stop, to avoid having to do this annoying workaround each time…
STOP Teams Opening Documents WITHIN Teams
Here’s where Microsoft buries the settings to sort this issue out and allow you to click on a file and open that file in the proper desktop app as you would expect, by default.
- First, use your magic three “…” button at the top of teams to open up more options and choose Settings, as highlighted in the below image.
- Next, go down to the ‘Files and Links’ category as highlighted below. Within there you’ll notice a ‘File open preference’ dropdown menu, from which you choose ‘Desktop app’.
Hey presto! Now Teams in future will always open Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files in the proper desktop app.
Now let’s also sort the similar issue of stopping your Edge web browser opening these apps within that browser…
Stop Microsoft Edge Opening Files WITHIN Browser
A similar annoying Microsoft default occurs when opening files when using Edge. Again, unfortunately Microsoft believes that by default people don’t want to use the full, decent desktop app they paid good money for to work with their documents. For example, MS Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. Instead, it thinks people want to use the limited space and functionality afforded by the browser-based version of the app. Not only that, but also to be slightly bewildered by a differing user interface of the exact same app.
Funnily enough, lots of people don’t wish to be forced down that route. If this sounds like you, follow the two simple steps below…
- First, in MS Edge as your web browser, bring up the three magic dots ( . . . ) for more options. Then choose ‘Settings’ as highlighted below.
- Second, go down to the ‘Downloads’ section of those Settings. Switch OFF the option that says ‘Open Office files in the browser’.
Now all your Office documents, PowerPoint, Excel, and Word files, should open in their respective desktop programs. Let me know how you get on with this!
I’ll close this blog now by demonstrating how this annoying setting seems part of a Microsoft strategy introducing mass complexity in working life, which I just wish they’d stop…
365 Apps to do the Same Thing – Have it Your Way!
So why on Earth do Microsoft subject us to these ‘lite’ web-browser style apps in the first place, rather than the ‘full fat’ desktop versions we all know and love? I believe it comes down to Microsoft’s apparent new ‘have it your way’ strategy, via its MS Office 365 suite, to give customers 365 apps to do essentially the same sorts of thing.
I’m not a huge fan as you might tell! And for good reason: What I’m finding for example when working in a big organisation is that different people have different preferences for doing the exact same things. This of course is not conducive to effective and streamlined teamwork. The complexity for every individual becomes huge, having to work around everyone else’s workflow preferences.
For example, consider how different people organise meetings and manage the documentation according to their personal preference. Let’s explore various scenarios during Sales Manager Katy’s bewildering daily diary:
- Katy receives a Finance meeting invite from Ryan. As an Accountant, Ryan loves spreadsheets and the traditional way of doing things. So he attaches the Excel spreadsheet to the meeting invite. This opens nicely in the Excel desktop app, Katy can understand what’s going on. However, Katy stores her own copy, since Ryan didn’t think about just sending a link to their shared folder.
- Katy’s Sales Director, David, wants to discuss sales performance of the whole team. His PA sends a meeting invite including a link to their group channel via Teams, which has a folder with the relevant documents in. Katy opens the files via Teams, struggling with the user interface as it is somewhat different from the desktop app.
- Katy receives another meeting invite from Ami in Marketing to run through all the online promotional materials. As a web expert, Ami feels it’s only right to do things on SharePoint, the company’s intranet platform. She therefore sends Katy a link to the Word document to review, held on the Marketing team’s SharePoint intranet pages. When Katy opens this, of course it’s the scaled back SharePoint ‘browser’ version of MS Word, not the desktop app she’s familiar with. Reading and editing therefore takes longer.
- Katy finally receives a meeting from Noah, Project Manager leading on a new product. Being a Project Manager, Noah likes to organise things in a megalomaniacal manner. OneNote serves this purpose brilliantly, like a small universe in itself, with separate tabs and sections for upcoming meeting documents, team tasks, and various documentation. Noah asks the meeting invitees to go into their shared folder (based in the more traditional File Explorer view, not SharePoint) to access the Project’s comprehensive OneNote file for all the latest stuff for consideration.
In this scenario, Katy must remember that to view her finances, she must dig out emails from Ryan on Outlook. To understand sales performance and what her manager wants, she must open Teams and navigate to the (one of many) channels she’s part of, find the documents / spreadsheets, and try to work with it in the limited Teams-based window. Now those online promotion materials, where were they again? Oh yes, Anya puts those on SharePoint… somewhere. And next off to OneNote to check in on how the project is going and where all the project documents are… Katy HATES OneNote with a passion.
Does this sound like your company? It’s more common than you might think! How can people possibly ‘excel at the office’ under these unnecessarily complex working conditions? Come on Microsoft, make it a bit more simple would you!
I hope you found this helpful. I can only sporadically blog around the day job, so please consider supporting my work by buying me a coffee if you’d like to see more.
Kind Regards, Adrian
I hope this guidance is supportive and saves some MS Office frustrations! Subscribe to my blog and EATO YouTube channel for more useful info. Liking the content? Please like and share with friends and colleagues who may also find it useful. If so inclined, supporting my work helps keep free content flowing. Want fantastic, time-saving templates or dashboards tailored to you and your business? Then please get in touch to arrange a bespoke quote. Finally, please feel free to leave your feedback below, including what tutorials or templates you’d like created.