Current situation
We have web app for document management programmed with html, php and JavaScript hosted on a centos vm. One usecase is that users are asked to check new documents content. Often they prefer to do the annotations in the document. Currently they need to download them, edit them with native Windows apps on their client and upload them again. Documents can be PDF, MS Office or special CAD formats.
Preferred situation
We would like to eliminate/hide the down- and uploading for the user. The editing should still happen with the native Windows apps on the client of the user. Web editors like for example PHPWord are no solution for us as there are to many special document types. To the user it should appear as no difference whether the document is opened from the local file system or the web app.
Question
With which technology can documents from the PHP web app be edited on the users client with their native Windows apps?
Brainstorming
Is it possible to use JavaScript to save a temporary copy of the documents on the client of the user? Do we need a browser plugin? Do we need a native app to support the process?