Sharepoint 2007: Upload a File from an Office Application

Office 2003 and later versions have a built-in functionality that enables you to save files straight into SharePoint. Different versions may present a different user interface for doing that, but the principle is the same.

To save a document from an Office application such as Word, PowerPoint, or Excel, use the Save or Save As functionality of the application. When the Save As dialog appears, type the path to the SharePoint site into which you want to save the file in the File Name box, and click Save or press Enter (see Figure 1). (This step does not save the document yet because you have not given it a name.)

Figure 1. Clicking Save after typing the path to a SharePoint site displays the document libraries in the site inside the Save As dialog.

This action opens the site’s structure in the dialog box and shows you the document libraries in that site, as well as the subsites under that site (see Figure ).

Figure 2. To see the subsites, scroll down the window.

You can now navigate to the document library that you want by double-clicking its name (see Figure 3), or browse the subsites by double-clicking them and selecting a document library from there.

Figure 3. To open a document library and browse its folders, either double-click it or single click it to select it and click Open.

Alternatively, if you know the path to the document library or folder you want to save to, type that in the File Name box and click Save to open the folder directly. When you have browsed to the folder to which you want to save, give the file a name in the File Name box and click Save to save it to the folder.

Depending on the configuration of the document library, you might be presented with several different dialogs, which can look different if you are using Microsoft Office 2003 or Microsoft Office 2007. The following figures, for example, show the dialogs presented to Microsoft Office 2007 users.

In the first dialog you might be asked for the content type of the document (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. A dialog to ask for the content type of the document.

The next dialog might remind you that the document must be checked in before other people can see it. Then, a dialog might tell you about the offline editing options that are set in your computer and provide you with some assistance for changing those settings, as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5. A dialog to let you know that the document is not checked in.

Finally, after all the dialogs have gone, your document is in SharePoint but still checked out. You can check it in from the web interface or from the Office application itself.

In the Office application, you have an option to check in the document in the menus. Again, depending on what version of Microsoft Office you are using, this option will appear in different places. In Microsoft Office 2003, it appears just under the File menu as a Check In menu option. In Microsoft Office 2007, it appears under the Microsoft Office button under the Server menu option (see Figure 6).

Figure 6. To check in (or perform other SharePoint-related tasks), use the Server menu under the Microsoft Office button.

Selecting Check In prompts you to make sure you want to check in and prompts for check-in comments.