PORTWARE Office — editing documents in the browser

PORTWARE Office is the layer that opens office files inside the system. You click a .docx attached to a quotation, the file opens in the browser, two people can write at the same time, and when you close it the change has already been saved. The download, edit, upload-again cycle disappears — and with it the question "which one is the latest version?".

The editor itself is ONLYOFFICE Docs (open source, Community Edition): PORTWARE Office · Powered by ONLYOFFICE. The system starts the editor, and the editor comes back to the system to fetch and save the file. The thin PORTWARE Office bar at the top of the page belongs to PORTWARE; the editor below it carries its own ONLYOFFICE logo, About window and notifications. The version history, the colour difference panel, SODRAW and Cowork AI are the layer PORTWARE adds around this editor.

What can be edited

Working together

There are two modes. In fast mode others see the letters you type instantly; in strict mode paragraphs are locked and changes appear only when saved. In long texts strict mode produces fewer surprises.

Track changes, comments and the editor's own chat work alongside them.

Templates

Templates are used for documents that are produced often: the system's fields (customer name, quotation number, amount) are placed inside, and they are filled in when the document is produced. This is the layer that automates filling in forms.

Saving and Ctrl+S

While the editor is running, changes are kept automatically; when you close the document its latest state is written to the record's attachment.

Ctrl+S does something separate: it leaves a visible checkpoint. It is the way to say "keep what I have written so far here". Checkpoints are kept apart from the numbered versions; they do not touch the live file and do not disturb the editing session.

The AI inside the editor

Cowork also works inside the office editors: rewriting the selected text, summarising, translating, producing tables and pulling data are done without leaving the document. Chapter 15 describes it.

The office window is the Cowork panel itself. The floating window in the editor opens the same Cowork panel as the back office; every feature is here too, including live conversation, spoken approval and single-approval plans. The "go to" command also marks the change in yellow in Word and PowerPoint and finds list paragraphs and pictures exactly.

Ribbon and title bar. Large, legible ribbon icons coloured by function; a thin PORTWARE Office bar and a title in Office colours. Presentations stay presentations, and pictures are fitted to the slide.

Known limits

Being honest is better than disappointing later:

• Comparison only in Word documents. Putting two revisions side by side and showing the difference as tracked changes is possible only for .docx; the editor has no such interface for spreadsheets and presentations. (The colour difference panel computed on the server works in all three formats — chapter 9.)
• "Highlight deletions" exists only in the word processor and cannot be left on; it is marked again at every opening.

Why an office file should sit on the record

The Word file of a quotation is what goes to the customer; the quotation itself is the record in the system. When the two sit in different places — one on a disk, the other in the system — a third version appears sooner or later. Keeping the document as the record's attachment removes the question "which one is valid": the valid one is the one on the record, with its history recorded.