Not able to open PDF Documents in SharePoint Online on the client with Check-in/Check-Out Functionality

Question

We have Office 365/ SharePoint Online. We want to open pdf documents on a client (Adobe Reader) so that it can be edited. We are able to open the documents on the client but we are not prompted whether we would like to Check-Out the Document before editing.

We would Ideally like to use the SharePoint Check-out/Check-in capabilities for editing files. But here, it opens the file on the client without prompting for a Check-Out.

I have tried the following- 1. Set the default PDF Application as Adobe Reader 2. On IE Browser Settings disabled Adobe Reader Plugin so that it opens on the client.

But in vain.

Any suggestions on how this can be achieved would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Set your doc library where you store editable PDF files to require Check-Out. Open the file with check-out and make sure that the checkout uses your "Use My Local Drafts Folder". It should open PDF with the Adobe Acrobat, as long as it is installed on the PC you access SharePoint from. Good luck! The deal is that "Use My Local Draft Folder" created a copy of the file "behind the scenes" in the SharePoint Drafts folder under "My Documents" location (by default). Once a draft is created there, OS file association "takes over" to control file opening and correctly uses Adobe Acrobat to deal with it... Hope this will work.