Automatic checking in of documents into SP from Word

Question

I have noticed an oddity in SharePoint 2010 Libraries that I am hoping one of you will be able to shed some light on...

If I:

1) Check a Word document out of SharePoint via the web interface.
2) Open the Word document by clicking on its 'Name' link

then an option exists on the 'File' tab to check in the document from Word (and add a comment).

If, however, I:

1) (With the document not checked out) Click on the 'Name' link
2) When the dialog box pops up asking me if I want to open the file in 'Read only' or 'Edit' mode, I select 'Edit', and click OK

the document does not appear to be checked out in SharePoint (and there is no 'Check In' option on the File tab), but if I make and changes and Save the document, the version minor number increments (e.g. 0.2 -> 0.3). In this case, I have obviously effectively checked the document out, made changes, and checked it back in, but never was I given the option to add a comment.

My company are huge sticklers for adding comments every single time a document is modified and checked back in, but if I use method 2, the version history ends up full of empty comments, even though we would like to add them.

Could this be something specific to the way we have things configured, or is this just the way SharePoint is?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Answer 1

That is just the way it is in my experience when the library is set to not require check out, which is the default. Even if check out is not required, you can check any document out to put a file lock on it so others can't make changes while you have it.

Try toggling the library option to require check out and see if that makes any difference.