Scenario/Problem:
When viewing a document library, either in the home page or in a
library view, you need to open a document in order to see its contents.
Solution: When you’re in a document library, you just click on the link to the document you are interested in (see Figure 1).
If the file is a Microsoft Office file, and if the SharePoint
environment supports it, the file may open in the browser, in what is
called a Microsoft Office Web App. If it is a different file type or if
the environment doesn’t support Microsoft Office Web Apps, then
depending on your machine’s configuration, the document opens either in
a new window or in the associated application (Word documents open in
Word, Excel workbooks will open in Excel, and so on).
FIGURE 1 Open a document for reading by clicking the document’s filename in the document library.
Also, depending on the
installed applications on your machine and on the level of permissions
you have, you might be prompted to make a choice about how to open the
file. You should also get a warning that files from websites may
contain viruses (as shown in Figure 2), and you will be asked to confirm that you indeed want to open the file.
FIGURE 2 Microsoft Office’s warning when opening a document from a SharePoint site.
