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How to use Skydrive

Thursday, 28 July 2011

In an earlier column (June 30 2011), webDotWiz described the "new-look" Live Skydrive at skydrive.live.com. Skydrive is the free online storage space of 25Gb for your documents, photos and videos. All you need is a free Windows Live ID to use it - for free!

You can create Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents online in Skydrive even if you haven't got any of the desktop Office apps installed on your computer. You can share these documents with your family and friends by setting the appropriate permission. As well, you can co-author Word and Excel documents online.

You can upload photos and videos directly to your Skydrive storage space or use the built-in upload features in Live Photo Gallery and Live Movie Maker to upload and store your photos and videos in your Skydrive.

Folders and files

When you open Skydrive in your browser, your folders and files are listed much as they do in Windows Explorer. The left-hand pane makes it easy to choose to view your documents or photos. As well, as you create and store documents online, you can easily access recent documents or those documents you're sharing with other people. There's also quick access to folders and files you're sharing with other people in a group (such as a club or organisation).

Folders are denoted just as they are in Windows with a small yellow folder icon. Folders containing photos have a picture thumbnail to differentiate them from document folders.

Files are listed just as they are in Windows with an icon to symbolise whether the document is a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote document. Other documents such as PDFs don't have any particular icon but this will change when a PDF viewer is incorporated into Live Skydrive. If you want, you can change the way folders and files are displayed by using the buttons alongside the search box - thumbnail or detail view (the default).

Hovering over any folder or file gives you an information icon on the right-hand side which, when clicked, opens a right-hand pane from which you can carry out functions such as rename the folder or file, set permissions for sharing, get information about the owner of the folder or file, and send a link to share the folder or file.

Creating a new Office document

At the top of the Skydrive window is you create a new Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote document. There's also an icon from which you can create a new folder. Bear in mind if you're sharing documents, then to keep things organised, it's best to create a new folder in which to share these documents. Don't use your My Documents folder to share files with others - keep the My Documents folder for you own personal folders and files.

The first job is to give your new file a name. On the same page you can change permissions as to who can only view or who can edit the new document. You can leave this task to later on if you want. Note the "breadcrumbs" at the top: Your Name -> Skydrive -> Folder name (if applicable) -> Name of document. Use these breadcrumbs to go back to a previous folder or all the way back to all the folders you have stored on your Skydrive. These breadcrumbs work the same as they do in Windows so you can quickly jump back to an earlier view of your folders and files.

Once you've saved the name for your new document, a new page opens with the Word ribbon at the top. Be aware that if you're returning to a document to edit it, you need to click on Edit in browser at the top of the ribbon to get started.

You can type your content into your new Word document and then format it with Word's usual features such as bolding, underlining, changing font size, centring text, and more. Tools from the ribbon enable you to insert tables and pictures. Just be aware that if have the desktop version of Word 2010 that you can't apply border styles to pictures you've inserted. Nor can you edit a video in a Skydrive PowerPoint document. However, if people who do have Office installed on their computers and have uploaded a document to share on Skydrive that all content is faithfully rendered (such as an edited photo, Excel chart or video in PowerPoint).

Saving documents

Just as on your desktop computer, you'll want to save your document from time to time. In Skydrive Word, use the File button at the top left to do this. Note that Skydrive Excel spreadsheets are automatically saved as you work.

Co-authoring

You can work online simultaneously with other people with whom you're sharing your Excel and Word documents.

In Skydrive Excel you'll know when others are working on the same document by checking at the bottom right of the Excel document window.

Simultaneously editing a Skydrive Word document is a little more complicated, since, in comparison to Excel's one-cell-at-a-time editing, Word is made up of paragraphs and that's how co-authoring is implemented.

When you or one of your co-workers is editing a paragraph, that paragraph is locked to other users. Once that person has finished their edit and saved the document, all the group will see the change and be able to carry out their changes (if they want to).

Save time and energy by sharing

One of the main benefits (apart from not needing to purchase the desktop version of Office) is that you can create and edit your Skydrive Office documents anywhere you have access to the Internet. That means no more storing documents on a USB stick and forgetting to take the stick with you or, worse, losing your stick.

More importantly, having your Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents online in your Skydrive enables you to share your documents with others, either to simply to view or to edit if you wish. That means no more emailing documents from one person to another and waiting for them to review or edit the document and trying to keep up with changes. Now you can simultaneously work with others on a document in real-time and achieve a productive outcome.

Quicklinks

All the interesting sites that webDotWiz found during the past fortnight are on the accompanying sites page.