What's the dif. between EDIT and CHECK OUT in Sharepoint?

[Guest]

Hi,

I edit a document from a sharepoint library with Word 2007. Someone else
tries to edit it too. They get an error saying it's locked.

I check out a document from a sharepoint library. Someone else tries to edit
it. They get an error saying it's checked out.

What's the difference? Why bother checking out the document at all? Seems
like Edit is just enough?

I'm using WSS v3. Thanks.

 

[Jezebel]

There are times when you need to lock a document to prevent changes, without
necessarily wanting to edit it. Some common situations --

1. You are preparing an entirely new version of the document, that will be
uploaded in place of the current version; if you don't check out someone
else may make edits which would then be lost when you upload your version.

2. You want to work on the document offline, on your own machine, without
the risk that someone else will edit the online version in the meantime.

3. You are creating some output from the document, and need to be sure that
the document doesn't get changed by someone else while you're doing so.

 

[Guest]

Oh, this is interesting. So basically if Fred EDITS a document from
sharepoint, then SALLY will be locked out. But! There's always the case that
FRED might CLOSE the document on his machine. Once he does that, Sally could
update the server copy. So if FRED wanted to protect the document on the
server without opening it yet, he needs to CHECK OUT.

Check out will protect the server copy whether or not it is opened on your
machine. Is that the main gist of check out?

Also, can you give me an example of the "output" reason? What's output?

Thank you so much.

 

[Jezebel]

Oh, this is interesting. So basically if Fred EDITS a document from
sharepoint, then SALLY will be locked out. But! There's always the case
that
FRED might CLOSE the document on his machine. Once he does that, Sally
could
update the server copy. So if FRED wanted to protect the document on the
server without opening it yet, he needs to CHECK OUT.

Check out will protect the server copy whether or not it is opened on your
machine. Is that the main gist of check out?

Yes, that's the point. Once you've checked out the document, no-one else can
update it.

It might also be that you are undertaking a major revision of the document,
that entails editing it repeatedly over several days. You don't want to keep
it open all that time, so you check it out, do your work over the course of
the week or whatever, then check it in when you've finished. That way,
no-one else can make changes that interfere with what you are doing.

Also, can you give me an example of the "output" reason? What's output?

'Output' could be anything generated from your source documents: HTML pages,
combined PDFs, process analysis derived from procedure charts within your
documents, etc; and bear in mind that the documents in your SharePoint
library are not necessarily Word documents. They might be spreadsheets; so
you might want to lock (ie check out) a set of spreadsheets while you do an
audit or prepare a consolidated summary.

 

[Guest]

Thank you very very much. If you happen to know the answer to my "Get
Updates" post above, please reply! It's a mystery I haven't been able to
solve.

 

[Jezebel]

Try posting in a SharePoint forum.

Thank you very very much. If you happen to know the answer to my "Get
Updates" post above, please reply! It's a mystery I haven't been able to
solve.

 

[Guest]

Oh yes, I have. The Sharepoint posting areas are very non responsive.