Google Bulldoze offers a feature that can come quite in handy, nether the right circumstances. Y'all've probably seen this characteristic in action when someone shares a item document from within Google that anyone can view. The power to share with the public is a great way to distribute certain forms of documentation, and even ameliorate when sharing that document, via Google Drive, becomes visible to search engines.

You might be asking yourself, "Why make a document public, when you tin only share it with the specific people you lot want to view the certificate?"

The answer is simple: When you have non-proprietary documentation that you want to go broad-spread, manually sharing that document with individual users or groups, via Google Drive, can be incredibly time consuming. Every time someone new wants to view/edit the document, y'all would accept to then share it out with them. This is not an efficient ways of disseminating information. That's where public sharing comes in.

In that location are two caveats to this. Although the shared document is available through search engines, the best manner for users to reach the public certificate is via the link; so you volition take to share out a link for the document. Of course, those who have the link can and so also distribute it to help spread word of the certificate.

The 2d caveat is that Google has a hard limit of 200 people who can simultaneously view a document, and only 50 people who can simultaneously edit the document. That's withal a considerable amount of users that would be far more fourth dimension consuming to reach, if you're sharing manually.

With that said, let'due south see how to brand your Google Certificate public.

Public sharing

Although I shouldn't accept to write this disclaimer, I volition. Remember, if you're making a Google document bachelor for the public, that means anyone tin read information technology. To that stop, you will want to make certain the content in the document is not only worth sharing, only doesn't hand out sensitive company or personal data. Once more … if you're sharing a business document, make sure the content of that document best represents your visitor.

I'll demonstrate how this is done through the browser version of Google Drive. The steps for doing this on the mobile app is very similar. To share a document out to the public, open up Google Bulldoze and navigate to the folder containing that document. Select the document to be shared, and and then click the share push button in the upper right corner of the window (Figure A).

Figure A

In the sharing popup, click Advanced. From within the resulting popup (Figure B), click the Change link associated with Who has admission.

Effigy B

In the side by side window, click On – Public on the web. This will so reveal the Admission option (Figure C), which allows you lot to gear up what the public can do with the document.

Figure C

You tin can enable iii possible options for public sharing:

  • Can view (default) — public only has read admission.
  • Tin can edit — public has both read/write access.
  • Can comment — public tin can read and add comments.

Most likely, you're going to want to stick with the default pick. If you do want to gain public input, I would recommend going with the Can comment option. However, you must understand this means the public can add what they want, so you lot open yourself up to scrutiny, or users adding language not safe for work. But, if you lot want input on a document, it'due south a skilful manner to become.

Once the document has been shared, you will exist presented with a link to use for distributing the document. Share that link on social networks, e-mail, your company website … or whatsoever means necessary.

Mind your security

In case you demand another reminder, please call up to not making sensitive information public. The last matter you need to do is make a Google Drive document, containing proprietary company data, public. Simply for PR data, documentation, and other not-proprietary data, sharing with the public, via Google Drive, is a handy means of dissemination.