Sharing Google Docs with Non-Gmail Users
How can I share a Google Doc with a Non-Gmail user?
As Google Docs becomes more and more popular, this is an increasing common question.
In fact, sharing Google Documents with Non-Gmail users is very simple once you learn where the “Email as Attachment” option is within Google Docs.
See Also: Google Docs How to Tutorial 2012 [Video]
The video tutorial below will show you:
- How to share a Google Doc with Non-Gmail users both from within a document and from the Google Drive / Docs home screen.
- The different file type options you have when exporting a Google Doc to a Non-Google user.
- How the email appears when the person you sent the Google Doc to receives it.
Don’t forget to check out all of my other Google Docs Tutorials!
About Anson Alexander
Anson Alexander is a graduate from the University of Tampa with a degree in International Business and Information Systems.A previous IT Administrator for a medium size publication company, Anson has recently decided to work full time on his own business by publishing on AnsonAlex.com, publishing technology tutorials on YouTube and offering SEO, IT training and digital marketing services.His main interests include technology, social media, infographics, economics, marketing and web design.Connect with Anson on Google+.
Anson – thanks for creating these videos. A feature I am not clear about is – how 'sharing' works with the google docs install on your desktop. If I create a folder and indicate that I want it 'shared' with someone (by providing their email address). It emails that person a link. But it does not update the 'My Drive' folder on their local desktop.
I was hoping that Google Docs worked a little more like 'Dropbox' – with the share feature.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
To be honest, I don't think the local folder aspect of Google Docs has been fully implemented and I personally stay away from it at the moment. As far as the file not showing up in the My Drive folder, this started happening after Google updated the Drive interface about a year ago and even though the user has access to the file, it doesn't show up in the folder until the manually add it. I find the easiest thing to do is to have the user search for the file in their Google Drive and then add it to the folder they want it to appear in.
Hi- I was thinking about using Google Docs to send out an editable calendar to all parents at my child's school. This would be to used to organize volunteers for various monthly time slots. I am new to this and wondering if this is a good idea or am I creating a "monster" as some I am sure are completely unfamiliar with this and don't have Google docs downloaded, etc. Your thoughts on this approach?
Lindsay,
I think this is a great idea! There will always be some people who are unfamiliar with technology but the World is changing and society is requiring people to understand technology more and more whether they like it or not.
I do have a suggestion for you that I've done with a Masonic Lodge. They wanted to do the same thing – a calendar that they all can see and edit. The original idea was to have everyone create a Gmail account and then share the calendar with everyone'e Gmail accounts. Because this can be a bit confusing for some, I recommended that the original creator of the calendar have his own account but then create just 1 guest account and pass out the authentication information of that guest account to anyone who needs it. You can, of course, give whatever permissions necessary to that account but then you only have to worry about managing two accounts instead of 30.
I hope that helps and let me know if you have any additional questions.
What about the real work? like sharing 5gb video files?
If you're sharing files of that size, I would recommend getting an FTP server.