How do I use Teams for messaging while editing Office files in Teams?

While editing a document in Teams when a message is received the document has to be closed to respond, follow these steps to change documents to open with locally installed Office applications.

1. Click the ellipsis in the top right corner of Teams, then Settings.

2. Once on the Teams settings page, click Files and Links. Then on the right window, under File open preferences select Desktop App.

3. When documents are opened they will default to opening with the desktop version of Microsoft Office. When the document is open in this way you can use Teams and respond to messages like normal.