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Forum Discussion
Editing Word document on Android mobile
I am able to edit Excel files stored in Dropbox; however, Word documents say Read Only and state I need to say a copy of my original file to be able to edit it. I can't see anything different in the signin information or app settings within Word and Excel. Is this a known issue or do you have a suggestion in trouble shooting this issue?
24 Replies
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- Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
Hey Eumelchen98 , thanks for letting us know about this.
Can you clear the cache of both the Dropbox app and the Word app on your phone, to see if that helps?
If not, try uninstalling and reinstalling them as well.
Just make sure you don't have more than 3 connected devices, before you uninstall, because with a Basic plan, you won't be able to reconnect the app to your account, unless you delete other connected devices.
- Dear Hannah, thank you for your answer, but that doesn't help at all.
I can't edit word files on my smartphone. Excel files are no problem and on my pc I can also edit all the files. It's just a problem on the smartphone and with word files. And it's not me alone, all of my mates have the same problem.
What else can we do? Is that maybe a problem with the Dropbox Basic Abo? But then it makes no sense that we can edit it on the pc where we use the same basic Abo. - Jay
Hi @Eumelchen98, you mentioned it occurred for certain files in your folder, but for a newly created file you didn't get this issue.
Were those files originally created via the Dropbox site or app, or synced from the desktop app? What about the new file you created?
Did you try deleting the Word app on the mobile device and reinstalling it? Are you using the 365 app, or the standalone Word app?
- Hi Jay and thanks for your answer. I tried both, the standalone word app and the 365 app. Both the same. The files where created via Dropbox. Whe just tested it again but its the same. On pc we can edit it without problems. We can't open the files via word for the Web, cause this option is not shown in our apps.
- Jay
You mentioned a pen button for editing the file, however, in the Dropbox mobile app, it should looks like a box with an arrow pointing out of the top right corner.
Could you attach a screenshot showing the docx file in the Dropbox mobile app, while hiding any details of the doc itself?
- Yeah this icon with the Box is there and it opens a submenu from where I can choose the app with which I want to open the file. But then in the opened app there is the button to edit the file, which is deactivated
- How can I attach screenshots?
- Jay
You can click the camera icon in the reply box, or copy and paste it directly. The second image of the edit button in the Word app would also be helpful.
- There ist no camera icon in the reply field.
Oh okay, here we go. Your site isn't made to be used by smartphone, because on the smartphone there ist no such icon like camera and all the other stuff which is shown when I change into the Desktop view...
