A file can be configured to open in the Content Pane instead of its native application in the Options - Browsing tab. Occasionally you may wish to override this setting and open the file in its native application The software that is configured in the folder options- file types menu of the file explorer to open when a file with a particular extension is activated. For example, files with the .doc extension are configured to open in Microsoft Word..
To open a file in its native application (e.g., a spreadsheet in MS Excel)-
Right click on the item.
Select [Open in external application ] from the menu.
When a file is added to the tree it can be created as a reference item or copied into a KW database. Files copied to a KW database may need some special attention when you open and modify them in an external/native application. When an Item whose content is stored in a KW database is opened, the content is copied to a temporary file before it can be opened by an external application or shown in the browser. When you close an external application this temporary file is updated with your changes and it's content is then copied back into the database and the temporary file deleted. Due to inconsistencies in the ways different applications close and save files, detecting that you are done with the temporary file and need to save its contents to the database is not always 100% accurate. If you experience difficulty saving the file use the CheckOut process followed by the CheckIn process to manually indicate that the modified version of the file in the working directory is ready to be saved back to the database. This is a more reliable approach to opening content in external applications for both local and remote database items. These processes have additional benefits when applied to content in shared repositories.