Google Docs is one of the favorite tools that work online or offline no matter what particular work users do whether it is presentation, document, or spreadsheet. It offers 15GB of free Google Drive access and you can utilize it for one account and more storage, users have to purchase according to their needs.
For business purposes, there are different storage plans available and you can also pay as per storage users use. Many of us just think that Google Docs is just for creating templates, and presentations but the best thing is here, you can collaborate on Google Docs and share your stuff with team members, colleagues, students, and others.
Sharing or collaborating via Google Docs is considered to be safe and secure and it offers one unique feature of collaboration which is private and public sharing. This helps you in limiting the access of the files on the other hand. For more sensitive data, you can send them in private mode. Here in this tutorial, we are going to cover everything.
How to Collaborate on Google Docs
Follow some steps on how Google Docs collaboration works
1. Create a Document/ Template/ Presentation: Firstly you need to create a new document/ template in which you want to collaborate with others. You can easily make it by opening Google Docs. Click the (+) icon to start a new document.
2. Share your document: The next step is to share your document. For this, click on the Share button on the top-right corner of your screen.
The pop-up window appears with different sharing options. Let us check them individually.
- Get a sharable link: On the top list, hit Get sharable link button to create a link. Share it with anybody to access the document to want to share. Along with this, you can set the security preference to edit the document, to comment, or for only view purposes.
- Adding people: You can add an email address or the name available in the Google contact list. Next to it, you can choose whether people can edit, comment on, or only view the file.
- Advanced: You can also click on the advanced sharing button to share it directly on social media such as FaceBook, Gmail, and Twitter.
You can share the link with anyone to open the file on the other end.
3. Click Done: Click the Done button once you have done the collaboration and sharing of your existing file.
With these simple steps, you can easily collaborate using Google Docs. Whatever the collaboration and sharing take place, it all happens using Google Drive and you can access your document from anywhere.
For more security, if you have the Enterprise version (for Business) of G Suite then, the additional feature of Set expiration will be added. This lets you add the expiry date of the link and after this, the link will no longer in working. This is very beneficial if you have clients for a limited time.
It is also to be noted that the Set expiration feature does not apply to the files shared with the access to editing. You can set the expiration date to the links that support only view mode and commenting.
Similarly, many users have Google Docs on their smartphone and you can also collaborate your files directly from your smartphone.
How Google Docs Collaboration Works on Smartphones
Google Docs is available for both the App Store and Play Store so if you haven’t used it yet, download it and start collaboration at your fingertips.
1. Open the Google Docs app on your phone
2. Click on the (+) icon to add a new document. You can also choose a template to start with. Give it a name and Create it.
3. Click on the Menu icon (3 dots) and choose Share & export.
4. If you are looking to share it via link then enable the link-sharing button and the link automatically be copied.
Alternatively, you can also select a Share button to send the document directly through Gmail contacts or add an email address. Click the send icon.
With these simple steps, you can share and collaborate on your document directly through your phone. You can also read the comments on your documents from the top menu on the existing docs.
The best part of Google Docs is its availability in Offline mode. So you will not miss anything even if you don’t have an internet connection. And when you are connected to the internet, everything gets updated.
The offline mode is only available on the apps so you have to download the app to work offline with Google Docs.