Office Online Server Provides Browser-Based Editing

Office Online Server, the successor to Office Web Apps Server that was released in Oct. 2015, promises better co-authoring and improved performance and stability. Office Online Server is on-premises server software for browser-based viewing and limited editing of Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Word documents stored in SharePoint libraries and certain other locations. Office Online Server enables some features in other software such as SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, and Skype for Business Server. Features that SharePoint Server previously provided have moved to Office Online Server, so many organizations will have to adopt it when upgrading SharePoint.

Enabling Full Server Functionality

Office Online Server is required to enable certain features of the current versions of SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, and Skype for Business Server:

SharePoint Server 2016. Office Online Server integrates with SharePoint Server 2016 to let users create, share, and collaborate on Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote documents by simultaneously editing documents in a browser in real time. Documents being edited are stored in SharePoint Server document libraries, including OneDrive for Business per-user document libraries.