Local open vs cloud workbooks
What is the difference?
Local open — Pick a file from this device (or create a blank one). Editing runs in the tab with the OnlyOffice WebAssembly engine. Nothing is uploaded. Download or use File → Download as to take a copy home. Optional recovery copies can stay in this browser for 7 days (history).
Cloud workbooks — Sign in, then use My workbooks. Files live in your account (?workbook=<id>). Save and autosave sync to the account so the same workbook follows you across devices. Cloud sync is $5 per year.
Do I need an account?
No for local editing. Open a .xlsx free without signing in. Sign in only when you want cloud workbooks that travel with your account.
When should I pay $5 a year?
When you need the same workbook on another device, after clearing this browser, or after switching browsers — and you do not want another Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace seat. Local open stays free forever. Paying does not unlock VBA, Power Query, or live multi-user co-editing.
Is this a full Excel replacement?
No. It is built for opening attachments, everyday formulas, and format-preserving edits without installing Office. For VBA macros, heavy Power Query, or live multi-user co-editing, use Excel or Google Sheets.
Opening and creating documents
Which file formats can I open?
Word (.docx, legacy .doc), Excel (.xlsx, legacy .xls), PowerPoint (.pptx, legacy .ppt), comma-separated values (.csv) and PDF (.pdf). Pick a file with Open, drag and drop it onto the page, or pass a URL with /workspace?file=https://… / /workspace?src=https://… (the server hosting the file must allow cross-origin requests).
How do I create a new document?
Use New in the workspace, or open /workspace?new=docx, /workspace?new=xlsx, /workspace?new=pptx directly. A local blank document exists only in your tab until you download it (or until you save it into a cloud workbook after signing in).
Is there a file size limit?
No fixed limit for local editing. The practical ceiling is your device's memory, because the whole document is parsed and rendered in the browser. Cloud uploads may enforce a per-file size limit shown in the workspace.
Editing and saving
How do I save my changes?
Local path: Press Ctrl+S / ⌘S or use File → Download as. The browser hands you the file (Downloads folder). Choose another format in Download as to convert (for example DOCX → PDF, XLSX → CSV).
Cloud workbook: Save and autosave write to your account. You may also export a download copy at any time. Mid-flight edits can stage on this device first, then sync when the network allows.
Why is the Save button sometimes greyed out?
The Save button lights up once the editor has fully loaded the document and you have made a change. If it stays grey after editing, the document did not finish loading — check the notification toast for an error and see the error-code section below.
Can I convert between formats?
Yes, on your device: open a document and choose the target format in Download as. Word documents export to DOCX / PDF / TXT, spreadsheets to XLSX / CSV / PDF, presentations to PPTX / PDF. CSV files are opened as a spreadsheet and can be saved back as CSV.
My Chinese / non-English CSV shows garbled characters elsewhere. What about here?
The editor sniffs the CSV encoding before opening it — strict UTF-8 first, then GB18030 (the "ANSI" encoding Excel uses for Chinese exports), then Latin-1 — so files that show mojibake in other tools open correctly. Saving writes UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, which Excel opens without a wizard.
What can I do with a PDF?
Open and read it (scroll, zoom, search), add comments and free-text annotations, and download it again as a PDF that keeps those annotations. Fillable forms can be filled.
Can I rewrite the text of an existing PDF like a Word document?
Not as free-flowing text — PDF is a fixed-layout format. To change wording, open the original DOCX / XLSX / PPTX and export a new PDF from it. Both steps happen on your device.
Read-only and embedding
Can I open a document read-only?
Yes. Add &readonly=1 to a /workspace?file= link, or send document:set-readonly through the embed API. Read-only can be switched on and off at runtime without reloading the document.
Can I put the editor inside my own web app?
Yes — the editor is designed to be embedded in an iframe and driven with postMessage: your page fetches the file (with its own authentication), sends it into the iframe, and receives the edited File back to upload wherever you want. See the Embed API reference and the live demo. A good fit for file managers, LMS, and CRM products that must keep bytes on the integrator's side.
Browser AI agents (WebMCP)
Can an AI assistant in my browser drive the editor?
Yes, where the browser supports it. The editor registers a set of WebMCP tools, so a browser-based AI agent can open, convert, read and export documents by calling them directly instead of clicking through the interface. On the local path, everything still runs on your device — the agent triggers the same on-device code the buttons do.
The tools are open_document_url, open_document_buffer, create_document, save_document, get_document_text, set_readonly and get_document_state.
Which browsers support it?
WebMCP is a proposal from the W3C Web Machine Learning Community Group, currently available in Chrome behind an origin trial. Firefox and Safari have not announced support. Where the browser does not provide the API, nothing is registered and nothing changes — it is a pure addition.
Does it work in an embedded editor?
No, by design. Tools are only registered when the editor is the top-level page. A cross-origin iframe would need the embedding page to grant allow="tools", which conflicts with how embedding is meant to work — so if you embed the editor, drive it with the Embed API instead.
Can the agent read the document's text?
For word-processing documents, yes: get_document_text returns the text so the agent can answer questions about the content without exporting anything. Spreadsheets and presentations do not expose a full-text read on this engine; the tool says so explicitly (rather than returning an empty answer that would look like an empty file) and points to exporting instead.
Offline and installation
Does it work offline?
Yes for local editing. After the first visit the editor is cached by a service worker; you can install it as an app from the browser's address bar (PWA) and open documents with no connection. The first open of a document that uses many fonts still needs the network once to fetch those fonts; afterwards they are cached too. Cloud sync needs the network when flushing to your account.
How do I get the newest version?
The site updates itself on the next visit. If a page seems stuck on an old build, hard-refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R / ⌘⇧R) or unregister the service worker in the browser's site settings.
Privacy
Are my documents uploaded anywhere?
Local open: No. The document is read from your disk into the browser tab and processed there with WebAssembly. You can verify this in the network panel while opening and downloading — and the source is open under MIT.
Cloud workbooks: After you sign in, workbook bytes are stored in your account so they can sync across devices. That path is opt-in; unsigned local editing never uses it.
What does the page load from the network?
The application itself: the editor's JavaScript, the WebAssembly converter, fonts and the page's own assets — all from this site's origin — plus a privacy-friendly Cloudflare Web Analytics beacon (no cookies, no cross-site tracking) and Google Analytics (gtag.js) for aggregate traffic. Signed-in cloud save talks to the account API. If you enable the optional AI assistant with your own API key, its requests go directly from your browser to the provider you chose; nothing passes through this site as a proxy.
Errors
What do the error codes in the notification mean?
- -85 — the file content does not match its extension (for example an HTML page saved as
.xls, or a.docxthat is actually a.doc). Rename or re-export the file. - -82 — the file could not be converted; it may be corrupted, password-protected, or in a variant the engine does not support.
- -24 / -25 — a script of the editor failed to load, usually a network hiccup or a stale cached build. Hard-refresh and try again.
- 80 — export failed inside the converter. Try another target format; if it persists please open an issue with the file type and steps.
Something looks broken. Where do I report it?
Open an issue on GitHub with the browser and version, the file type, and — if it is not confidential — a file that reproduces the problem. A minimal reproduction beats a description.
Self-hosting
Can I run my own copy?
Yes. It is largely a static site, so any web server works for the editor shell: docker run -d -p 8080:80 ghcr.io/ranuts/document:latest, or build with pnpm run build and serve the dist/ folder. See the README for HTTPS and basic-auth options and the changelog for what each release changed. Cloud workbooks need the Appwrite project configuration used by this product.