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How to send out copies of an Excel 365 document, not share original?

Anonymous
2023-10-21T21:44:10+00:00

I have created a document in Excel 365 that I want to send out to a group of people, but I want them each to have their own copy so that they don't edit each other's or mine. Also, these are not all tech-savvy people and I do not want to leave it to them to copy the master for themselves. Is there any way I can send them all their own copy as opposed to just sharing the original?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For business | Other

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-10-24T16:09:46+00:00

    Hi,

    Thanks for your kind patience and I had better understanding of your scenario.

    I agree it would be more efficient to have a click button and easy to turn on for sending copies for the file receivers. But we are sorry to convey that currently there has no out of box way to realize this. We will submit this to the Office product development team and let the engineers get informed of this to publish such a feature as soon as possible.

    Hope you have a nice day!!

    Best Regards,

    Mia

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-10-23T17:52:14+00:00

    Thanks for your reply, but I still have issues:

    What I really want to do is send everyone in the group their own copy of the document - I do not want to leave it to them to copy as most of them are really busy professionals who are not well-versed in Office and are too busy to learn.

    I did try a test of what you suggest, but even that had problems because if I make a document "read-only" there is no option for them to make a copy for themselves. If they download a copy, the formatting gets messed up.

    If Microsoft is taking feedback, please include a "send copy" selection in the sharing options!

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-10-22T03:00:41+00:00

    Hi Curt Pitter,

    I went through your post carefully and understand your demand to share a file to others but don't let them edit the original file but everyone makes their own copies to edit.

    If my understanding is correct, the logic way to achieve this is to simply share the file in Read-only level permission, and then everyone can open the document but won't be able to edit on the file. To be able to edit and make their own copy, they can only try to download or Save As a new copy if the file.

    See: Share OneDrive files and folders - Microsoft Support and select View only permission.

    You can share the following steps for the users

    1. Open the Excel 365 document sharing link which wi
    2. Click on "File" in the top left corner of the screen.
    3. Click on "Save As" in the left-hand menu.
    4. Click "Download a copy" or "Save As" to save in their OneDrive location online.

    I hope this helps but if I made any misunderstanding or there have anything else I can do for you, feel free to come back with us anytime. Hope you a nice day!!

    Best Regards,

    Mia

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