# Real-time editing and presence

Several people can work in the same document at the same time. Nobody is locked out, and nobody overwrites anyone.

## What you see

Avatars in the corner for everyone with the document open, and their cursor in the text, coloured and labelled. When they select something, you see the selection.

Changes appear as they are typed. There is no save, no refresh, no “someone else is editing this” banner.

## How it holds together

Edits merge rather than compete. Two people typing in different paragraphs is uneventful. Two people typing in the *same sentence* produces a merge — both sets of characters survive in a sensible order, which is the right outcome even when the sentence needs a tidy afterwards.

Go offline and keep typing; your edits sync when you reconnect. A dropped connection is not lost work.

## Where locking does happen

The one place Workover is deliberately not concurrent is the **Gutenberg block view**. Editing a post as raw block markup while someone else edits the same post is genuinely unsafe, so opening it takes a cooperative claim and others are told it is in use. It is advisory rather than enforced — it stops accidents, not determined people.

## Etiquette that helps

- **Comment rather than rewrite** when someone is actively in the document. Their cursor tells you they are there.
- **Use suggestions** for changes to someone else’s draft — visible, attributable, reversible.
- **Use tabs** for parallel work. Two people on two tabs of the same document never touch each other’s text.

## Who counts as present

Anyone with access and the document open: workspace members, project members, and people the document is shared with — including link viewers, who appear as guests.

## Related

- [Comments and suggestions](/docs/comments-and-suggestions)
- [Document tabs](/docs/document-tabs)
- [Roles and permissions](/docs/roles-and-permissions)