You’ve just completed a Google spreadsheet with charts, formulas, and data galore. Now you’re ready to share your spreadsheet with your colleagues and you realize that you don’t know whether or not they have a Google account. The good news is that there are many ways to share a Google Doc with a non-Google account holder.
The easiest solution is to simply ask your colleague(s) if they have a Google account. But in this case, we’ll assume that you either don’t have time to ask, you need to share a document with several colleagues under deadline, or it is a situation in which you simply can’t get that information ahead of time.
In this post, we’ll discuss three of the most common scenarios for sharing a Google Doc with a non-Google account holder, but first we should probably get clear on some vocabulary.
A Google account is not a Gmail account. A Google account is a unified sign-in system that gives one access to Google products like Docs, Groups, AdWords, and so on. A Google account can be associated with any email address—not just Gmail addresses. It’s very likely that the person you are trying to share a Doc with already has a Google account that they have created at one time or another.
A Doc is a Google document, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, or form. Docs can only be edited within the Google Docs application. A Google account is a user name and password that allows a person to sign into Google Drive. This may be an @gmail account, a Google Apps account, or any email address associated with a Google account. You can associate any email address in the world with a Google Apps account.
Three scenarios for sharing a Doc with a non-Google account holder
Scenario one: You’ve created a document, spreadsheet, or presentation and you need to share the completed version with a non-Google user.
In this case the best thing to do is send the document as an email attachment. With the Doc open, click the File menu and choose Email as attachment. A dialog box will appear where you can adjust the format for the file, enter the email address of the recipient(s), and send a message along with the Doc.
You can send your Docs in the MS Office format, as text files, as HTML files, or even as PDFs.
This is the best option if you are sending a completed file, like a report. However, if your recipient makes edits to the file in Microsoft Excel or Word and sends it back to you, you can always convert the file from MS Office format back into a Google Doc to edit.
Scenario two: You need to share a doc with a group of people who do not have Google accounts and you would like them to make edits to the doc.
If this is the case, the best thing to do is to change the visibility options of the Doc to Anyone with a link. You can change the visibility options by opening your Doc, then clicking the Share button at the top right and selecting Change under the Who has access portion of the Sharing settings dialog box. This will bring up the Doc’s visibility options. Select the second option, Anyone with the link, and then select Can edit from the dropdown menu by Access. Finally, click Save to keep your changes.
Note: If you are a Google Apps users and you do not see the option Anyone with the link it may be that your Google Apps administrator has disabled this type of sharing. If this is the case, you should move on to scenario number three, below.
Once you click the Save button you will be back at the main sharing screen. Copy the link in the Link to share field. This is the link you should share with people who need to make edits to the Doc. Once you share the Link to share link, your editors will be able to access the Doc in edit mode without being asked to sign in. Do not share the URL you see in your browser’s URL menu because that is a private link only for you.
If you are in the Doc at the same time as another person, the people that do not have Google App accounts will show up as Anonymous User You’ll also see these non-Google people show up as anonymous users when you look at the revision history.
The anonymous users with which you share your Google Doc link do not automatically become what Google calls collaborators, so be aware that you will not be able to use the Email collaborators function (as mentioned in scenario one) if you share the Doc using the supplied link.
It should also be noted that it is a best practice to change the visibility settings of the Doc back to Private when people are done editing and the Doc is complete. That way, no one can use the link you shared to come back into the Doc later and make more changes.
I would not consider using the Link to share functionality a best practice for sharing confidential Docs because this system of sharing creates a link that anyone can access. If you need to share a confidential Doc, see scenario three, below.
Scenario three:You need a non-Google user to edit your Doc and you don’t have the option to change the Doc’s visibility settings to Anyone with the link. Or you need to share a confidential Doc with someone who does not have a Google account.
If you want to share a private Google Doc and you want to use the Google Doc editor to edit the file, and the Google Doc list to manage the file, then you should ask your contributor to create a Google account.
As mentioned aboved, a Google account is not a Gmail account, but rather a unified sign-in system that gives one access to Google products like Docs, Groups, AdWords, and so on. A Google account can be associated with any email address—not just Gmail addresses—and it’s likely that the person you are trying to share a Doc with already has a Google account that they have created at one time or another.
When you share a private Doc with someone they’ll be sent a link to the Doc via email. When they click on the Doc link they’ll be taken to a sign-in page where they can enter their Google account user name and password. If they don’t have a user name and password, they can click the Sign Up link to create a new Google account. With a Google account created, the person can now access the Google Doc that you have shared with them. They can receive email notifications about the file, and based on your permission settings, they can now edit the file online. When they have the Doc open, you will see their user name appear in the upper right-hand corner of your Doc, rather than the Anonymous User moniker that appears for non-Google editors.
These are the three best ways to share a Google Doc with a non-Google user. I would also keep in mind that as more and more people are using Google products in one way or another, it is very likely that many of the people you need to share a Doc with will already have a Google account.
If you have another Google Doc or Google Drive scenario that you would like addressed, please leave it as a comment on this post.
To learn more about Google Docs and Google Drive, check out Google Drive Essential Training on lynda.com.
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Tags: Google, Google Docs, Susan Metz
Very nice post.
I found this helpful for getting some of our older, Google-resistant editors connected by adjusting the privacy settings to not require sign-in.
Thank you!
I’m glad you found this helpful!
This is the best discussion I have seen on this topic.
I have some reservations about method 1, sending as an attachment. This is due to the process of converting Google doc to Microsoft Office and visa versa easily resulting in a loss of formatting. It would seem if attachments are used and accuracy is needed, the Google doc must be converted to a PDF, which is an option. Of course, doing this removes the possibility of the recipient editing the document.
Tom, Thanks for your nice comment.
The MS Office to Google Doc conversion has become much much better since Google acquired Quick Office. Here is an article about it – http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2012/12/quickoffice-google-apps-better-document.html
But you are right, it’s still a factor to take into consideration, especially with highly formatted docs.
There is no best way to share the doc with a non-google users. I think you just have to take it case by case.
SIMPLY PUT
Right click the name of the file
click ‘Share’ from the menu
Click ‘Change’ (to the right of the padlock symbol) select ‘Anyone with a link’
Copy the link and send it.
JP
This is a good way to share a doc. However, this option is not available to Google Apps Users whose Admins have removed the publishing outside the domain option.
Very energetic article, I enjoyed that bit. Will there be a part 2?|
What would you like to see in Part 2?
Does anyone else have this issue?
I share the document as an email attachment but there is no record of it in my “Sent” folder in Gmail? Is this usual?
Pete, That is the expected behavior.
For a document that is shared with “anyone with the link”, do you know if the document can potentially be found via google search, say if someone happened to search on an uncommon string of words in the document using the google via “advanced search” function ?
A document shared with “anyone with the link” is not searchable by the search engines. It should have a special tag in the html that blocks the search engines.
When sharing my form with anyone who has the link, there is no choice but “can edit.” I.e., no drop-down as you show above. The text “can edit” is colored blue, but is not a hyperlink. I want recipients to be able only to fill out the form, not edit it. Thanks for any thoughts. — Lee
Click ‘Send Form’. Then share the link in the ‘link to share’ section. Recipients/viewers of that link can only submit responses.
When creating a form, under the confirmation page part you get three check box options:
- Show link to submit another response
- Publish and show a link to the results of this form
- Allow responders to edit responses after submitting
(None of these options will allow recipients/viewers to edit your form)
If you click ‘Send Form’ then click the ‘Add Collaborators’ link your only option is to allow them to edit the form since the only reason you would share this is to have them help you add questions or edit your form in some way. This is separate from the form results spreadsheet you can create. The results spreadsheet has the same sharing options as a regular Google Spreadsheet, which you can review at http://support.google.com/drive/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2494886&p=visibility_options.
You can find more Google Form help information at https://support.google.com/drive/bin/topic.py?hl=en&topic=1360904&parent=2811744&ctx=topic.
Is there a way to send a form and allow a non-google account to fill it out? I can do it with the response spreadsheet and can allow a non-google person to edit the survey, but they still can’t fill out the survey and submit a response without an account? Any ideas?
I’ve shared a presentation, setting that anyone with the link can edit. The problem is that they are not able to insert images, as the insert image option (menu or button) doesn’t appear. Any suggestions?
Mega, learnt a lot from this. Make some more articles like this guys. Will be back for more.
> I would not consider using the Link to share functionality a best practice for sharing confidential Docs because this system of sharing creates a link that anyone can access.
The link is username + password for the file. You cannot guess the link, so it is safe. The link is as secure as sharing username + password in a mail. But the link is better, as it is per document.
Still better were if you could create several links for the same document.
I have created a Google spreadsheet with setting “anyone with link can edit”. From you post above I understood that invitees didn’t have to be logged into their Google accounts to be able to edit. But although they can all view the spreadsheet, none of them, nor I can edit. Is there a reason for this?
I have tried sharing a folder with “anyone with the link” and allowed them to edit. As a test, I tried from another computer to access the file. It is sending to the google sign-in page instead.
Any suggestions?
Kirsten