How-To

How to Make a Google Docs Document Public

By Ben Stockton

Published January 5, 2023

If you want your Google Docs document to reach a wider audience, you might consider making it public. Here’s how.

If you want to collaborate on a project, you’ll need to share your documents. Google Docs makes it easy to share documents with others, even if they don’t have a Google account.

What happens if you want to share it more widely? One option for sharing a Google Docs document is to make it public. This allows anyone with the link to view or edit the document. You can also try other methods for sharing it, including publishing it as a webpage.

If you want to know how to make a Google Docs document public, follow the steps below.

How to Let Anyone View a Google Docs Document

To make a Google Docs document public, you will need to change the sharing settings for the document. This will allow anyone with the link to the document to view or edit it, regardless of whether or not they have a Google account.

This can be useful if you want to share a document with a large group of people. You can also follow these steps if you want to make it available to the public for viewing or downloading.

To let anyone view or edit a Google Docs document:

1. Open the Google Docs document that you want to make public.
2. Press the Share button in the top-right corner.
   
3. In the General access section, click on the drop-down menu. It should currently say Restricted.
4. Select Anyone with the link from the drop-down menu.
5. Next, press the drop-down menu next to Anyone with the link.
   
6. Choose Viewer to allow anyone with the link to view the document.
7. Select Commentator to let anyone with the link view the document and make comments or suggestions on changes.
8. Finally, select Editor to allow anyone with the link to view and edit the document.
9. When you’ve chosen your preferred sharing option, press the Copy Link button.
   
10. Press Done to finish.

Google Docs will update your sharing options immediately. You can now share the link with anyone you want to be able to view the document.

If you want to stop sharing the document, press Share and make sure to change the viewing options to Restricted instead. At that point, only users who have been invited to view or edit the document will be able to continue.

How to Publish a Google Docs Document Online

If you don’t want to share the document, you can also publish it online instead as a web page.

Publishing a Google Docs document online allows it to be accessed by anyone with the link, even if they don’t have a Google account. This can be useful for sharing documents with a large group or for making documents accessible to a wider audience. You can also embed published documents elsewhere.

A public document is read-only. If you want to allow others to read it, you’ll need to share it using the steps above instead.

To publish a Google Docs document online:

1. Open the Google Docs document you wish to publish.
2. Press File from the menu.
3. Next, press Share > Publish to web.
   
4. If you want to publish your document as it is (and avoid any changes when your document is updated), press the Published content and settings box and make sure that the Automatically republish when changes are made checkbox is unchecked. Otherwise, leave it checked.
5. Next, press the Publish button.
   
6. Confirm OK, if prompted.

At this point, your Google Docs document will be published as a website. You can copy the link provided or use the sharing options to share the link elsewhere.

If you want to stop publishing your document, press Share > Publish to web > Published content and settings and click Stop Publishing. This will remove the document from public view.

Sharing Your Google Docs

Making a Google Docs document public is a great way to push your pages to a wider audience. There are a few things you might want to consider after doing this, however.

For example, if you want to share your document for only a limited time, you can set an expiry date. You should also consider whether or not your document looks professional or not, so consider adding a cover page to make it stand out when it’s opened.

Do you need to share your document with people who colleagues who only use Microsoft Office? If this is the case, you can easily export your Google Docs document to a Microsoft Office format that supports Microsoft Word.