Public sharing and embedding allows you to easily share read-only copies of your documents with the public.
Sharing a document publicly is a great way to share its data and information directly without having to format it into something else. Spreadsheet.com enables you to share documents publicly in two ways: public link sharing and embedding.
Currently, public sharing and embedding is only supported for workbooks and workbook templates.
Public link sharing and embedding both allow you to publicly share documents, but work in different ways:
- Public link sharing allows viewers to visit a read-only copy of your document within Spreadsheet.com. For example, you may want to include a link to a workbook with a calendar of upcoming events in a newsletter to your organization’s subscribers.
- Embedding allows viewers to see and interact with a read-only copy of your document without leaving the place where it is embedded. For example, you may want to embed a workbook showing a roadmap of upcoming features in a blog post about what users can expect from your product in the future.
Spreadsheet.com makes it easy to share your document through either method, as well as control the parts of your document that are made public.
Accessing Public Sharing and Embedding
You can access public sharing and embedding settings from the Share workbook dialog.
How to Share a Document or Folder
To share a Spreadsheet.com document or folder,
- In your Workspaces sidebar, navigate to the document or folder you want to share
- Click the three-dot icon to the right of the document or folder name and select "Share..." from the dropdown
- In the Share dialog, select the method by which you want to share your document or folder
You can also access the Share dialog when you’re in a document by clicking the pink Share button in the upper right corner.
Open the dialog and click Public sharing and embedding at the bottom.
This will open the Public workbook sharing and embedding dialog, which we'll explore below.
Configuring Public Sharing and Embedding Options
The Public workbook sharing and embedding dialog allows you to configure the appearance of your workbook when shared with the public or embedded in a website. Let's take a closer look at the options.
To begin, make sure that Enable public sharing and embedding is toggled on in the blue box in the top left corner of the dialog.
It’s important to keep in mind that while publicly shared workbooks are read-only, they are visible to anyone with the public share link. Before publicly sharing a workbook, make sure that there is no confidential or sensitive information within it, and always double check the settings in the public sharing and embedding dialog.
The (1) Settings options allows you to control the ways in which the public can view and interact with your workbook. “View toolbar settings” allows you to choose whether or not viewers can enable filters, sorting, and column visibility. “Worksheet visibility” allows you to choose which worksheets viewers can see within the shared workbook. And “Workbook settings” allows you to choose whether or not viewers can copy the shared workbook.
As you change these settings, the (4) Preview window, which lets you see what the public will see when they visit your workbook, will dynamically update to reflect the settings. As you edit the sharing and embedding settings, this view will update to reflect your selections. To see a larger version of the preview window in a full browser window, click “Full page view” in the top right hand corner.
At the top of the dialog, the (2) Public share link can be sent to people you want to share your workbook with. They can use this link to access a read-only version of your workbook so they can view – but not edit – the data. The (3) Embed code allows you to embed a read-only version of your workbook in a site or app that supports the iframe format.
You can also share workbooks using Spreadsheet.com's built in sharing feature or by sharing an editable workbook link with permissioned users. Or, read on to learn more about collaborating in workbooks with features like Channels and Messages.