Microsoft Powerpoint presentation gets collaboration editing feature on Windows

Microsoft has announced some versions of the PowerPoint presentation will get some new features including real-time collaborative editing. This means that two or more people can pitch in at the same time into a document, all at once and the changes made will be seen and shared with everyone. This new feature for PowerPoint was made available in MS Word in 2015 itself, before which it was present in the MS Office Online. Microsoft is essentially backing up its promise made last year, of announcing the real-time collaborative editing feature on all of its desktop applications.

MS Office corporate vice president Kirk Koenigsbauer said in a blog post, “We are excited to announce that real-time co-authoring is now available in PowerPoint on Windows desktops, allowing you to see what others are typing as it happens on a given slide.” This feature is similar to Google Sheets, Docs and Slides. This new co-authoring feature is already available on PowerPoint on Windows, for subscribers of Office 365 and members of the Office Insider program. Additionally, the feature is present for users of PowerPoint Mobile on Windows tablets.

Microsoft announced that it has included the notifications feature for particular activities in MS Powerpoint, Word and Excel on Windows and Android Mobile for members of the Office Insider program, while it will be available for iOS users in some time. In the next few months, even commercial users will get to receive mobile notifications.

‘Shared With Me’ is a new section added to PowerPoint, Word and Excel for Windows, Macs, iOS and Android for Office 365 users. This section will help subscribers to locate the files which others recently shared with them, and do so quickly. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft, with its new ‘Office’, will be able to take on Google who is also very strong in this collaborative editing feature.

Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt. Ltd.