Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft® SharePoint™ 2003 in 10 Minutes

Opening and Checking Out Documents from a Document Library

Lesson 5 discusses the different ways to access a document stored within a document library. One way is to simply click the document name within the library, which will open it in read-only mode. If the drop-down menu is accessed by hovering the mouse over the document name, the user gets the option to edit in Microsoft Office Word (assuming Word is installed on the workstation), which opens Word and allows the user to work on the document normally.

SharePoint is also designed to allow documents to be “checked out,” which locks the file in SharePoint so no one else can edit it. Best practice is for users to check out a document before they click the Edit in Microsoft Office Word option. ...