Edit a deck together

Everyone who makes a deck can edit it at the same time, on the same slide too. There is nothing to start and nothing to save: open the deck, and anyone else on your slide is editing it with you.

Who is where

• In Slides, on the rail, a slide someone else has open shows their initials, in their colour. Its name says who is there, for example Slide 3: Revenue, Ana Ruiz is here.
• In the top bar, everyone else in the deck is listed with the slide they are on.
• On the slide, what each person has selected is outlined in their colour, with their name.
• In a text box you are both typing in, you see where the others are typing.

Editing the same slide

Changes appear for everyone as they are made: a moved chart moves on every screen, a word typed shows as it is typed.

• Text merges. Two people can type in the same text box, even in the same sentence: both keep their words.
• A setting is changed whole. If two people change the same setting of an element at the same moment, such as the figure a KPI tile shows or a chart’s data, one of the two changes is kept, whole. You never get a figure made of parts of both that nobody chose. Everyone sees the one that was kept.
• Undo takes back your own changes only. Ctrl+Z undoes what you did on the slide, in order, and leaves what others did since. While you type in a text box or the speaker notes, it undoes your own typing there. Once you leave the text, what you typed is one step of the slide’s undo, named for it, such as Edited the text of Text box 2.
• Your changes are saved for you. Everyone sees each change as you make it. It is stored as soon as the changes on the slide settle, and at once when you leave the slide, publish, present or export. The save state, beside the title in the top bar, says Saved only once your last change is stored. Ctrl+S stores your last change at once, and says so.
• A figure only some may see is not shared. If you add a figure that someone else on the slide may not see under their data access, your change isn’t made and the editor says why. Add it once they have left the slide.
• The checks follow. The checks run again on the slide as everyone has made it, and its marks update for everyone.

What the AI wrote keeps its AI-written label whoever edits the text, and only I’ve rewritten this removes it, for everyone on the slide. See Headlines and speaker notes.

Changes to the whole deck

The order of the slides, which slides are hidden, sections, the theme and the master, and the deck’s title, page size, locale and time zone change the whole deck, so they are made one at a time. If someone changed the deck after you opened it, your change is not made over theirs: the deck shows their version, and you can make your change again.

Restoring a version, or a theme that moves a slide’s elements, changes slides for everyone: anyone editing one of them sees it reload with the new version, and is told so.

Who can edit what

	Viewer and commenter	Contributor	Editor and owner
Edit any slide together with others			✓
Edit the slides they added or were given, together with others		✓	✓
Watch a slide change while someone else edits it		✓	✓
Open the published version	✓	✓	✓

A contributor who opens a slide they cannot edit sees it change as others edit it, but cannot change it.

If someone loses the right to edit a slide while they are on it, or is signed out, only they leave the shared session. A change they make in the moments after may still be kept. Everyone else goes on editing, with their own changes saved.

When you edit a slide on your own

Sometimes a slide is edited one person at a time instead, as before: it is yours while you change it, and read-only for others until you move on. The editor says why when it happens:

• The slide shows a figure your data access hides. Editing it with others would show you that figure, so you edit it on your own.
• Someone is already editing it on their own. You can change it when they are done: the editor tries again after a while, and you edit it together from then.
• Editing together is not available right now, for example when your network blocks it. You edit one slide at a time until it is available again; the editor keeps trying.

When the connection drops

If your connection drops, a line over the slide says The connection was lost. Reconnecting… and the save state in the top bar says the same. Keep working: your changes are kept and sent as soon as the connection is back, merged with what others did meanwhile, and the editor says when it is back. The same happens when DataSquares is updated while you work: what the slide holds is stored first, and anything not stored yet is sent again when you are back on the slide.

Your sign-in is renewed as you work, so a long session goes on together. The editor says your sign-in has ended only when you have been signed out.

If a change can’t be kept, for example because an element you pasted uses an id another slide already has, the editor says why and shows the slide as everyone else has it.