What is a document editor?
A document editor is a software application that enhances productivity and collaboration by allowing users to create, modify, and share documents.
Online document editors
An online document editor offers key features of desktop word processing and editing apps while reducing the risk of loss when working in offline or physical documents. It also allows users to collaborate across locations and devices.
Features and capabilities of online editing
Online document editors are software programs that offer the best features of desktop applications plus real-time collaboration and expanded access across mobile, desktop, and web. They offer a similar ability to design, write, edit, and publish documents, and with AI-assisted features, they also offer writing advice, help create outlines, merge existing documents, and even help you rewrite entire documents for clarity and concision.
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Formatting your document
Jump over the first hurdle in setting up your document by formatting it so that it’s easier to read and understand. Online document editors offer design and formatting features to easily create high quality, polished documents. Programs like Word:
- Let you quickly apply a set of formatting choices consistently throughout your document.
- Feature customizable templates to easily create professional-looking documents such as presentations, resumes, newsletters, and research reports.
- Offer design and layout help, paragraph formatting, indentation, and various customization options including bold, italics, underline, strikethrough, font choice, as well as heading styles and page numbers.
- Provide advanced formatting features such as consistency suggestions, smart paste, title enhancements, jumpstarts, and batch formatting.
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Reviewing and editing your document
Ensure writing quality and professionalism with a document editor like Editor that:
- Offers built-in tools to check spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation, as well as tools to help catch and correct errors.
- Provides advanced writing help, with a variety of features that offer style and tone advice, similarity checkers, and rewrite suggestions, as well as word and character count tools.
- Offers a dictionary, thesaurus, and other resources for writing such as creating bibliographies and citing sources with footnotes.
- Allows you to generate, record, or even upload transcriptions.
- Is able to translate text into a different language, such as the feature in both the desktop and online versions of Word.
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Adding visual elements to your document
Include images, charts, and tables in your written documents to help convey complex information in a clear and concise manner. Programs like Word and Editor provide a range of tools that let you easily add visual elements to your documents without needing advanced design experience. These tools include the ability to:
- Insert images, charts, and other web content into the document.
- Add headers, footers, and personalized stationery to your documents.
- Use tables, numbered and bulleted lists to organize and present information in a clear and concise way.
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Sharing and working together in documents
One of the key advantages of online document editing is the ability to let multiple users work on the same document simultaneously. This makes it an ideal way to ensure smooth teamwork for group projects or collaborations. Look for features that let you:
- Collaborate and coauthor the same document in real time or share a document with others over the internet via shared link or email.
- Compare and merge existing documents and use bookmarks to mark and quickly find important locations in your document.
- See revisions made by other users, using a track changes feature, such as the one in Word. This allows all users to easily see changes, as well as accept or reject edits to a document, if applicable.
- View, restore, and manage previous versions of your documents with version history.
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Protecting your documents
Online document editors often provide a range of security features that help users protect their documents from unauthorized access as well as reduce the risk of document loss that comes with working offline or in physical documents. Look for document editing tools that allow you to:
- Set permissions, restrict access, and control who can view or edit the document.
- Secure your documents with a password and protect them from unintentional editing.
- Save and export in a variety of supported formats, including PDF, rich text, and HTML.
- Upload documents to the cloud to allow users access to from anywhere across devices.
- Automatically save and backup work to protect from document loss.
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Checking your documents for accessibility
Create inclusive documents that follow accessibility best practices. Look for online document editors that:
- Help ensure that your content is easy to read and edit for people with disabilities with tools like the accessibility checker in Word.
- Give recommendations or directions to fix issues quickly.
- Add alternative text to images and create documents that are compatible with screen readers.
- Provide more comfortable reading and writing in low-light environments with dark and light mode features.
- Use dictation to easily write documents using your voice.
- Offer tools like Immersive Reader in Word to customize reading experiences and make them more comfortable.
How to edit documents online
Create or open your document
To get started, you may need to create an account with the provider of the document editor program of your choice. Once you have created an account, you can sign in and start editing your documents. Some document editors only support limited file formats, so make sure you chose a doc editor that with the versatility to work with your document’s file type. Check the file extension* to see if your document type is supported.
Edit your document
Explore the range of features for editing your documents. If you’re creating a new doc, you can get started by formatting text, changing font styles, colors, and sizes, and batch formatting to save time. Run spelling and grammar checks, get writing suggestions, track changes and word count, and check for accessibility issues. Many doc editors allow you to add spark and appeal to the document by inserting images, graphs, and charts.
Share your work with others
Online editing apps really show their superpowers in the collaboration arena. Invite friends, or team members to provide input or work together in the same doc. Comments and suggestions features make it easy to capture everyone’s feedback and track changes. The collaborative nature of these platforms promotes efficiency and teamwork, whether you're working on a school project, business report, or creative writing piece.
Save and export
Most document editors have multiple saving and exporting options. Upload your work directly to the cloud or save a copy to your device—or both. Exporting options allow you to download documents in different file formats for sharing or offline use. Cloud storage provides the benefit of accessing your documents from anywhere, ensuring you never lose your work due to hardware failures.
Uploading your documents to the cloud—which is a common feature of online document editors—offers several advantages:
- Expanded access. Work on the same document from any device with an internet connection—whether it’s a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.
- Productive collaboration. Multiple users can access and edit the same document simultaneously, regardless of their physical location.
- Version management. Saving your document to the cloud via a personal or shared drive such as OneDrive enhances the ability to track changes, review document history, and revert to previous versions if necessary.
- Document backups. Cloud storage services and content management systems such SharePoint provide automatic backups of your documents, keeping your work safe even in the event of computer crash or data breach.
- Data and intellectual property protection. Cloud storage services help keep your sensitive data confidential with encryption and other measures to protect your documents from unauthorized access.
Edit a Word document online
Here’s an example of how to get started quickly using one of the most popular free editing apps, the online version of Word, sometimes called “Word for the web.”
- Launch Word in your browser. (Sign in with your Microsoft account credentials, if required.)
- Select the Word document you want to edit or select New to create a new document.
- Once the document is open, select the Review tab in the top ribbon.
- From the Review tab, you’ll be able to select Editor to access a wide range of online editing tools such as grammar and spell checks, leaving comments, tracking changes—plus tools to give advanced writing help with style, clarity, or concision.
- While working in Word, your changes are periodically saved automatically. When you’re done editing, select the File tab, then Save as to save your changes.
- You can also collaborate with others in real time directly in the same doc. Learn more about working together in Word >
Apps for free editing online
Many providers offer tools for free editing online with advanced AI-assisted features, easy integration, and support for numerous file formats, devices, and operating systems.
Take advantage of free editing apps from Microsoft 365—including Word, Editor, Outlook, and OneDrive. Simply create a free Microsoft account or sign in with an existing one to get started.
Tips for using online editing apps and tools
Here are some tips and best practices to get the most of online document editing:
- Save your work regularly to prevent data loss. Most online editors automatically save your changes, but it's good practice to save manually as well.
- Back up essential documents. While saving documents in the cloud has reduced the need to create local copies, it’s sometimes wise to create backups of essential documents on a local storage device.
- Collaborate effectively. When working together on a document, communicate with your teammates and use commenting and suggestion features to provide feedback and discuss changes. Learn more collaboration tips >
- Use strong passwords. Whatever document editing tools you choose, make sure your account stays secure by using strong, unique passwords. Consider using a password manager to keep track of your credentials.
- Take advantage of templates. Templates can save you time and help maintain a consistent look and feel in your documents. Most editing apps have a portfolio of available templates or will allow you to create your own customized templates.
More online editing tools
Elevate your writing
Create, review, and refine your documents and polish your writing using advanced features and AI tools available with Word.
Write like a pro
Write with confidence across documents, email, and the web with features that help strengthen your spelling, grammar, and style.
Protect and share documents
Edit, organize, and share your docs in the cloud and easily access them from any device with OneDrive.
Create, share, and collaborate
Maximize your potential and achieve your goals with editing and productivity apps all in one place.
Frequently asked questions
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Yes, you can edit Word documents online using Microsoft 365, which offers a free online version called Word for the web that allows you to create, edit, and share Word documents online.
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Editor is free online text editor software that provides intelligent writing assistance to help you write more clearly and concisely, anywhere you write. It is available as a browser extension for Chrome and Edge browsers, as well as a feature in Word and Outlook. You can try Editor for free by downloading it for Chrome or Edge, or by using it in Word or Outlook for the web or desktop.
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You can use various Microsoft 365 apps to edit and alter documents, depending on the type of document you’d like to alter.
Here are some apps with advanced capabilities:
- Word: A word processing program that allows you to create, edit, and share documents.
- PowerPoint: Presentation software that allows you to create, edit, and share presentations using text, images, videos, and animations.
- OneNote: Note-taking software that allows you to create, edit, and share notes.
- Outlook: An email software that allows you to send, receive, and manage emails, as well as maintaining calendars, and contacts.
- SharePoint: A web-based collaboration software that allows you to share and manage documents with others.
- Teams: A collaboration and productivity that allows you to chat, call, hold meetings, share files, and collaborate with others.
- Excel: A spreadsheet program that allows you to create, edit, and share spreadsheets.
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Yes, there are many free PDF editors available online. Here are some of the best free options:
- Edit a PDF in Word: You can edit a PDF in Word by converting it to a Word document. This works best with PDFs that are mostly text. Learn more >
- Edit a PDF in Microsoft Edge: Edge is a web browser with a built-in PDF editor that allows you to make edits directly within the browser. This is convenient for making minor edits to a PDF without switching to another app.
- Edit a PDF using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC: This is a popular PDF editor that lets you add text, sticky notes, highlights, drawings, and more.
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You can edit a scanned document using Microsoft Word. Here are the steps:
- Scan your document according to the instructions for your scanner and save it to your computer as a PDF file.
- Open Word, select File, and then Open.
- Browse to the location of the PDF file on your computer and select Open.
- A message will appear stating that Word will convert the PDF file into an editable Word document. Select OK.
- Once the conversion is complete, you can edit the document as you would any other Word document.
- When you’re done editing, select File and then Save As.
- In the Save As dialog box, choose PDF from the Save as type dropdown menu.
- Enter a name for the file and select Save.
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Depending on the document type, there are many ways to edit an existing document.
Here are a couple of popular options using versions of Microsoft Word:
- Word for the web: Word for the web is a free online version of Word that allows you to create, edit, and share Word documents online. Learn more >
- Word desktop app: If you have the Word desktop app installed on your computer, you can use it to edit Word documents. Learn more >
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Yes! Office is now Microsoft 365, which is free to use online with a Microsoft account. It offers robust document editing apps with the latest AI tools to create and edit documents online.
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Word lets you open and edit in many file formats, including:
File format
Word 97-2003 Document
Word Macro-Enabled Document
Word Document
Strict Open XML Document
Word 97-2003 Template
Word Macro-Enabled Template
Word Template
Web Page
Web Page, Filtered
Single File Web Page
OpenDocument Text
PDF
Rich Text Format
Plain Text
File extension
.doc
.docm
.docx
.docx
.dot
.dotm
.dotx
.htm, .html
.htm, .html
.mht, .mhtml
.odt
.pdf
.rtf
.txt
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Yes! One of the advantages of Microsoft Word is that it is available for many different devices and operating systems (OS). You can use Microsoft 365 apps on your personal computer or mobile device—no matter if you’re running Windows OS, MacOS, iOS, or Android.
Follow Microsoft 365