Sharing: About owners, collaborators, and viewers
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Owners
- Can edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and invite more collaborators and viewers.
- Can delete documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and thereby remove access for collaborators and viewers. Please note: To fully delete a document, spreadsheet or presentation, and remove access to it, you must delete it and then Empty Trash.
Collaborators
- Can edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations.
- Can invite or delete other collaborators and viewers (if the owner has given them permission).
- Can export a copy of the document, spreadsheet or presentations to their local hard drive.
Viewers
- Can see the most recent version of a document, spreadsheet or presentation, but can't make any changes.
- Can export a copy of the document, spreadsheet or presentation to their local hard drive.
Access with Google Accounts
Documents and spreadsheets: if they are published, or accessed by invitation, anyone can view them without a Google Account.
Presentations: anyone can view if they are published. If a user is invited, a Google Account is needed.
Sharing: Adding viewers and collaborators
There are two ways you can share your Google Docs: from your Docs list or directly from a document, spreadsheet, or presentation.
Sharing from the Docs list:
- From the Docs list, select the checkbox next to the item(s) you want to share and click the Share button.
- Enter the email addresses of the people or mailing lists that you'd like to add.
- Choose as Collaborators or as Viewers from the drop-down list.
- Add a message and click Send Invitation (this is optional).
At this time, PDFs can only be shared from the Docs list, not from the PDF preview.
Sharing directly from a document or presentation:
- Click Share > Share with others.
- Select as Collaborators or as Viewers, depending on your preference.
- Enter the email addresses or mailing lists that you'd like to add.
- Click Invite collaborators or Invite viewers.
- If you'd like to add a message to your invitation, input your text in the box that appears and click Send. To skip sending an invitation, click Cancel. Your collaborators and viewers will still be able to access the doc from their Docs lists, but they won't receive an email invitation.
Sharing directly from a spreadsheet:
- Click the Share > Invite peopleā¦
- Select To edit or To view, depending on your preference.
- Enter the email addresses or mailing lists that you'd like to add.
- If you'd like to add a message to your invitation, input your text and click Send. To skip sending an invitation, click Add without sending invitation. Your collaborators and viewers will still be able to access the doc from their Docs lists, but they won't receive an email invitation.
Please note that the following sharing restrictions apply:
Limits for documents and presentations: 200 combined viewers and collaborators can be explicitly shared with; however, publishing your doc grants people access without the need to specifically invite them. 10 people may edit and/or view at any given time.
Limits for spreadsheets: 200 combined viewers and collaborators can be explicitly shared with; however, publishing your doc grants people access without the need to specifically invite them. 50 people may edit and/or view at any given time.
Publishing Google Docs
In Google Docs, publishing allows you to make your document available to the whole world. Once you publish your document, spreadsheet or presentation to a web page, you are given a URL. After this, anyone you choose can access your document by linking to it through the URL. Robots and spiders can't get to your documents, spreadsheets or presentations, which means they won't appear in any search index.
To publish your documents, click on the Share drop-down menu on the top right and choosePublish as web page. On the next screen, click on Publish document (Publish now in Spreadsheets.)
Please note, at this time it is not possible to publish PDFs.
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