locking works with the Excel application, but live sharing between the two is not possible.

Both applications have similar limitations on the features that can be changed while the document is shared. Microsoft Excel has a similar feature called Share Workbook. Unlike previous versions, 3.0 shows who locked the document, how long the document has been locked, and an option to open a copy. If sharing is not enabled, the document is locked. If two people change the same cell, the second person to merge his changes will see a dialog box called 'Resolve Conflicts.' It presents the choices 'Keep Mine' or 'Keep Other' for each conflict. If there are any updates, shows a notification dialog box, and the changes will be marked with one color for each author.

In other words, the changes are only updated during saving. Periodically each user should save the spreadsheet to merge his change and refresh changes from other users.Other users may now open the spreadsheet.Check the box Share this spreadsheet with other users and click OK.This setting persists for the document even after the last user closes the document. The first user should open a Calc spreadsheet saved in OpenDocument format in a network location accessible to others.Multiple people on multiple computers using multiple operating systems can edit the same OpenDocument spreadsheet at the same time. 3.0 introduces live sharing of Calc spreadsheets.

Openoffice review 2012