Software biggie Microsoft recently previewed some of the forthcoming features which it is bringing to Office Web Apps, the browser-based Web component of the company's Office 365 product.

With Office Web apps essentially delivering online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, one of the new features recently previewed by Microsoft included the real-time co-authoring support.

Revealing that the real-time co-authoring support is being added by Microsoft to its Web-based version of Office, Amanda Lefebvre - a product marketing manager for the company - said that the functionality has been presently switched on for PowerPoint users. The key benefit of real-time co-authoring support is that it improves the overall experience of editing Office files and documents in collaborative, multi-user situations.

While previewing real-time co-authoring support for Office Web Apps, Microsoft also released a video which shows how the changes that one user makes in a PowerPoint presentation immediately comes up in the browser window of another user. The edits made to the presentation show up as soon as they are registered, even if the users are in different views.

Noting that Microsoft plans to "introduce real time co-authoring in the Office Web Apps so that all file authors will automatically see presence and edits from others as they happen without needing to refresh," Lefebvre said in an Office 365 Blog post though real-time co-authoring marks only a "subtle change," it still is "a great enhancement to enable even richer collaboration."