Edit in Word & Google Docs

Edit in Word & Docs lets you open a Word document held in Clment — an original contract or a generated redline — directly in Word Online or Google Docs, edit it in the tool you already know, and pull the result back into Clment as a new version. It’s a genuine round trip: Clment uploads a copy to your cloud drive, tracks the live editing session, and checks your edits back in when you’re done.

This is the natural next step after a review. You generate a redline from your findings, fine-tune the wording in Word, check it back in, then compare versions side-by-side to see exactly what changed.

Connecting your account (one-time)

The connection is per user — you connect your own Microsoft or Google account, and only you can see or use the files in your drive. It is never shared with other members of your organisation.

1. Go to Settings → Edit in Word & Docs.
2. On the Microsoft or Google card, click Connect Microsoft / Connect Google.
3. A popup opens for the provider’s sign-in and consent screen. Approve it.
4. The card flips to Connected and shows the account email and the date you connected.

You can connect Microsoft, Google, or both. If a connection ever stops working, the same card offers Reconnect and Disconnect.

What Clment can access: the OAuth scopes are deliberately narrow. For Microsoft, Clment uses an app-only folder (Apps/Clment in your OneDrive) — it can see the files it creates there and nothing else of yours. For Google, it uses Drive’s per-file scope, so it can only touch the documents it uploaded for you. Your refresh token is encrypted at rest.

Opening a document in Word or Google Docs

You don’t open documents from the settings page — you open them from the contract.

On a contract, you’ll find Edit in Word and Edit in Google Docs buttons in two places:

• The Documents tab, on each Word version (original, revision, or redline).
• The Reviews tab, in the Redlines dialog for a review that produced one.

When you click one:

1. Clment uploads a copy of that version to your OneDrive (the Apps/Clment folder) or Google Drive.
2. The document opens in a new browser tab — Word Online or Google Docs.
3. A banner appears at the top of the Documents tab showing “You’re editing [version] in Microsoft Word” (or Google Docs), with the actions to finish the round trip.

Edit as you normally would. Both editors auto-save to the cloud while you work.

If you haven’t connected the relevant account yet, the button reads Connect Microsoft / Connect Google instead and takes you to the settings page first.

Checking your edits back in

When you’re finished editing, return to the contract’s Documents tab and use the editing banner:

• Check in from OneDrive / Google Docs — pulls the current contents back from your drive and saves them as a new version on the contract. In the confirmation dialog you can choose to:
  • Delete the file from your drive after check in (on by default — keeps your drive tidy).
  • Make the new version the Active version (on by default — so AI search and future reviews use your edited copy).
• Continue editing in Word / Google Docs — reopens the same cloud file so you can keep going.
• Discard changes — deletes the in-progress cloud file without creating a new version. Use this if you opened a document by mistake or don’t want to keep your edits.

The checked-in document lands as a revision version. From there you can run another review on it, or open the side-by-side comparison to see your edits against the version you started from.

”No changes detected” when checking in

If you edited in Word Online (the browser) and check in immediately, you may see a prompt that no changes have synced yet. Word Online can take up to about a minute to flush edits back to OneDrive even after it shows “Saved”. Close the Word Online tab, wait a few seconds, then click Try again. Desktop Word and the Word mobile apps sync straight away, so this only affects the browser editor. Google Docs auto-saves continuously, but make sure it shows “Saved to Drive” before you check in.

Co-editing with a colleague

While you have a document open, you can bring someone else in from the editing banner:

• Invite to edit shares the cloud file with an org member or any email address (e.g. external counsel) so they can co-edit in Word or Google Docs alongside you.
• If a colleague tries to open a version you’re already editing, they can request access, and you’ll be notified to Grant or Decline.

The person who opened the document owns the session, and either the owner or a granted participant can check it in.

Limits and things to know

• Word documents only. Edit in Word & Docs works on .docx versions. PDFs show Preview and Convert to Word instead — convert the PDF to Word first (see Generating redlines for how Clment handles PDFs), then edit the resulting Word version.
• Connections are per user, not per organisation. Every person who wants to edit in Word or Google Docs connects their own account. There’s no shared org-wide connection.
• One editor per version at a time. You can’t have the same version open in both Word and Google Docs at once — check in (or discard) the first session before opening it in the other editor.
• Only the session owner or a granted participant can check in. If the owner’s Microsoft or Google connection has lapsed, the check-in will ask them to reconnect first, because the file lives in their drive.
• Check-in always produces a .docx. Native Google Docs are exported back to Word format so the version slots into the same review and comparison pipeline as everything else.

See also

• Generating redlines — produce the tracked-changes document you’ll fine-tune in Word.
• Comparing versions side-by-side — review exactly what changed after you check your edits back in.