Document libraries V: How to download a library Overview: Your library, when you need it Does your company use a Microsoft Windows ® SharePoint Services

Document libraries V: How to download a library

Overview: Your library, when you need it

Does your company use a Microsoft Windows® SharePoint Services 3.0 site or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007?

Have you ever needed to access your library’s files when you’re on the road?

Well, there’s a solution for you. Use Microsoft Office Outlook® 2007 to download all of the files from your library. This course will show you how.


How to download a library

With SharePoint libraries, files live in a central location where people can access them using an Internet connection.

But what if you don’t have that connection?

Say you’re in sales, and you’re about to go out into the field, where you won’t have an Internet connection to your library. But you’ll still need to refer to sales presentations, contract documents, and spreadsheets.

What do you do? If you have Outlook 2007, you can download all the files at once.


A process overview

Here’s an overview of the process of downloading a library.

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You download all the files from the library into Outlook 2007.

Files will appear in Outlook as separate e-mail messages, in a new folder called SharePoint Lists.

As the picture shows:


Download a library

So how do you download a library?

Go to your library, and then click Connect to Outlook on the Actions menu. Your SharePoint library will then connect to Outlook as shown here, and you can choose which files to download.

After you download the files, you can preview them in the Reading Pane, or you can open them as read-only.


The library is now connected to Outlook

After you’ve clicked Connect to Outlook and downloaded the library files, Outlook will keep a connection with that library.

If you need to make sure you have the latest files on your computer prior to leaving the office, click the Send/Receive button in Outlook before you go.


Edit the downloaded files

So your library is downloaded into Outlook.

Besides being able to read the files, can you edit them while they’re offline? Yes, you can.

Use the Edit Offline button that appears when you open the file in an Office document. An icon with a red arrow pointing up appears in Outlook, as a reminder that the document was edited offline.

Back in the office with your Internet connection, you can update the library version with your offline version by clicking Update, as shown here.


A note about editing files offline

When you edit the downloaded files offline, the Word, Excel, or PowerPoint 2007 file will be stored in the SharePoint Drafts folder on your computer.

In Windows XP, this is in My Documents. And in Windows Vista®, this is in the Documents folder.


What about checkout?

Can you check out files within Outlook?

Unfortunately, no. Do that from your Web browser.

And remember, if you need to work with the files while away from the office, be sure to select the Use my local drafts folder check box, as shown here.

If you know you are the only one working on a certain file, you don’t have to check it out; you can simply edit it offline and update it later, as you saw previously.


An extra step for large libraries

If the total size of all library files exceeds 500 MB, files will not be downloaded into Outlook all at once. Downloading such a large library can be slow and taxing.

Instead, only the names of the files will appear, and the contents of the files will not be previewed automatically for you.

In this situation, click the Download this document button at the bottom of the e-mail message. Then Outlook will download and preview the file for you.


When you don’t want the library in Outlook

You can easily remove the library from Outlook if you don’t need it anymore.

Under SharePoint Lists, right-click the library folder and choose Delete. (This doesn’t delete the actual library on the SharePoint site; it just removes it from Outlook.)

Important: Before you do this, make sure you’ve opened any files with red arrow icons and updated the library.


Your version is important

Remember, this course covers how to download a library into Outlook 2007.

And this functionality works only if you have a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 library or a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 library.

How do you know which version you have? It’s a common question. The best way to find out is to ask the person in charge of your site.