Google Bulldoze offers a feature that can come quite in handy, under the right circumstances. You've probably seen this characteristic in activeness when someone shares a particular document from inside Google that anyone can view. The power to share with the public is a great way to distribute certain forms of documentation, and even amend when sharing that document, via Google Bulldoze, becomes visible to search engines.

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

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

At that place are two caveats to this. Although the shared document is available through search engines, the all-time way for users to reach the public document is via the link; so you volition take to share out a link for the certificate. Of form, those who have the link can so also distribute information technology to assist spread discussion of the document.

The 2nd 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 certificate. That'due south even so a considerable amount of users that would exist far more fourth dimension consuming to reach, if yous're sharing manually.

With that said, let's run into how to brand your Google Document public.

Public sharing

Although I shouldn't accept to write this disclaimer, I will. Remember, if you're making a Google document available for the public, that ways anyone tin read it. To that end, you will want to make sure the content in the certificate is not just worth sharing, but doesn't hand out sensitive company or personal information. Again … if you're sharing a business organization document, make sure the content of that document best represents your company.

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 Google Drive and navigate to the folder containing that document. Select the document to exist shared, and then click the share button in the upper right corner of the window (Figure A).

Effigy A

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

Figure B

In the adjacent window, click On – Public on the spider web. This will then reveal the Access option (Effigy C), which allows you to set up what the public can do with the document.

Figure C

You can enable three possible options for public sharing:

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

Most probable, you're going to desire to stick with the default option. If you do desire to gain public input, I would recommend going with the Can comment option. However, you must understand this ways the public tin can add together what they want, so you open yourself up to scrutiny, or users adding language not condom for piece of work. Only, if you want input on a document, it's a adept way to go.

Once the certificate has been shared, y'all will exist presented with a link to utilize for distributing the certificate. Share that link on social networks, e-mail, your company website … or whatsoever ways necessary.

Listen your security

In example you need another reminder, please remember to not making sensitive information public. The last thing you lot need to practice is brand a Google Drive document, containing proprietary visitor information, public. Only for PR information, documentation, and other non-proprietary data, sharing with the public, via Google Drive, is a handy means of dissemination.