I edited an Excel document by tapping on it in OneDrive on iPad, closed it, and opened it. The opened version was not the version I closed. Unreliable saving of office documents also happens in other apps like Word. It is a nightmare to work like this on iPad and highly frustrating and embarrassing: I sent an Excel file (by attaching it to an email) to a colleague, which did not reflect my recent changes and was therefore completely wrong.
It was suggested to not send Office documents by attaching them to an email but rather send a link. While this may work in most situations, there are times when I actually want to send a copy to a colleague and not a link. The problem also impacted me when duplicating a file, e.g., for a backup, i.e., an old version was duplicated.
I also experienced that a different (older) version was shown after opening an office document in the Word or Excel apps on iPad after closing it.
I have experienced these problems for a long time and I have filed several bug reports both to Apple and Microsoft. Although saving files reliably is very important, it has not been properly addressed.
It seems that I am not the only person who saw this or related problems:
Has anyone else experienced such problems? What can I do about this?
Here is an example for the Excel file „Vergütungen 2022-2023“, which I opened from the Files app and then modified it in the Excel app.
When I open the Excel document file from Safari or the OneDrive app, I get an old version. When I open the Excel document from the Files app, I get the version I just modified (although the date in the Files app is also yesterday).
Image 1: In the Excel app on iPad, it is confirmed that the file has been saved just now.
Image 2: However, in the Files app on iPad, the save date is yesterday.
Image 3: The date in OneDrive in Safari is also from yesterday, but it differs from the date in the Files app.
Image 4: In the OneDrive app on iPad, the date is also yesterday.
