Share an item by email
Invite people to a saved document, spreadsheet, deck, design or project and choose whether each person can view or edit it.
✦ Course · Intermediate
Share your work and edit it live together
Share documents, sheets, decks, designs and projects by email, edit them live on a computer or phone, and keep changes from colliding.
Start courseYOUR OUTCOME
By the end you will have shared a live document with the right people and know how to follow, discuss, split and protect the work you do in it together.
Share an item with view or edit access Follow who is editing and talk it through in comments Plan a session so changes land safely
7 min
Open what others share with you
Find shared items by name under Shared with me and open them straight into the live session.
Edit together and see who is there
Read the live dot, the count and the named cursors to see who else has the item open and where they are working.
Comment and reply in a shared document
Pin a question to the words it is about, answer each other in the Comments panel and resolve the thread once it is settled.
Keep working from your phone
Open shared items on the phone and share your own from there, working on the same live copy as on a computer.
Split the work so changes don't collide
Give each person their own section, slide or task, and know which parts of each editor are shared live.
Keep a safe copy and manage access
Snapshot a document or deck before a big session, and change or remove access when the team changes.
What each lesson covers
The course, lesson by lesson.
Share an item by email
Invite people to a saved document, spreadsheet, deck, design or project and choose whether each person can view or edit it.
Sharing starts in the desktop workspace on a computer, and lesson 5 covers the phone. Save the item first, or Share tells you Save this first, then you can share it. Share sits at the right-hand end of the editor's toolbar. Beside the chat the editor is often too narrow for it, so it moves into the More menu, the ··· button, under From toolbar. In Share this document, type an address in Add people by email, pick Can view or Can edit, and press Share. Someone new gets an invite email that names you and the item, says what they can do and has an Open in Oppermind button. A message confirms it, such as Shared. We emailed tom@saltbushnetball.org.au to let them know. Sometimes no email goes, for example after a sending limit, and the message says they will still see it under Shared with me. An address with no account shows · pending until that person signs in with it. Sharing by email may depend on your plan.
Practice. Save a document, open Share, and add one colleague with Can edit and another with Can view. Read the message after each share, then add an address that has no account and check that its row shows pending.
Mei Lin, secretary of the Saltbush Netball Club, opens Court lighting grant application and chooses Share from the More menu. She adds tom@saltbushnetball.org.au with Can edit, aisha@saltbushnetball.org.au with Can view, and jess@saltbushnetball.org.au with Can edit.
Open what others share with you
Find shared items by name under Shared with me and open them straight into the live session.
Everything shared with you sits under Shared with me in the sidebar. Each row gives the item's name and type, then who shared it, when, and your access, for example Shared by Mei Lin · shared today · Can edit. The Open in Oppermind button in an invite email takes you to the same item once you sign in with the address it was sent to. Click a document, spreadsheet, presentation, design or project and it opens in its editor and joins the live session. A shared PDF opens in the PDF editor without live editing. Can view lets you read and download it, and with Can edit the marks you save are added alongside everyone else's. The owner of a document can also copy a link with Share link in the More menu. It opens only for people the document is shared with, after they sign in. With Can edit you can change an item but not invite anyone, because only the owner decides who has access.
Practice. Ask a colleague to share a document with you. Open it from Shared with me and type a sentence while they watch it arrive in their copy.
Tom, the club treasurer, opens Shared with me, clicks Court lighting grant application and adds the club's contribution to the Budget section.
Edit together and see who is there
Read the live dot, the count and the named cursors to see who else has the item open and where they are working.
Live editing works in Document, Sheet, Slide, Design and Project. Once an item is shared, opening it joins the live session, and changes travel both ways as people work. The Share button shows who is there. A green dot means the item is live, a yellow dot means you are following it view only, and a blue number counts the other people who have it open. When Share sits in the More menu, the ··· button carries the same dot and number. With Share on the toolbar, hover over it to read names, such as Share - live with Tom Nguyen and Aisha Rahman. In a document, each person's cursor is a coloured line with their name above it. Someone with Can view gets a yellow strip under the toolbar that starts View only, and they can read along but not type. If live editing can't connect, a message says so, and for someone else's item, close it and open it again to retry.
Practice. With a colleague, open the same shared document. Find the dot and number on Share or on the ··· button, then each type in a different section and watch the other person's cursor.
Mei and Tom both have the grant application open. Aisha, the club president, opens it from Shared with me with Can view.
Comment and reply in a shared document
Pin a question to the words it is about, answer each other in the Comments panel and resolve the thread once it is settled.
Comments sit inside the document, so they save with it and reach everyone in the live session. This lesson covers the Document editor. Select the words you want to ask about and click Comment on the toolbar, or in the More menu under From toolbar when the editor is narrow. Right-click gives New comment too. Type your note and press Add. The words get a yellow highlight, and the Comments panel opens beside the page with each writer's name, the time, the words the comment points at and any replies. To answer, type in the Reply box and press Reply. Resolve marks a thread as settled and clears its highlight, and Show resolved in the panel lists it again with who resolved it and a Reopen button. Delete, beside Resolve, asks before it removes a comment and its replies, and the words stay on the page. With Can view you can read comments, and trying to add one shows You can view this document but not comment on it.
Practice. In a shared document, select a figure, add a comment with a question and ask a colleague to reply. Once you agree, press Resolve, check that the highlight has gone, and find the thread again under Show resolved.
Mei selects $6,500 in the Budget section, clicks Comment and types: Is this the figure the committee approved?
Keep working from your phone
Open shared items on the phone and share your own from there, working on the same live copy as on a computer.
On the phone, open the sidebar and tap Shared with me. The sheet lists the same items as on a computer, by name. Documents, spreadsheets, presentations, designs and projects open full screen and update live with everyone else, and PDFs open there too. Other types show Open on a computer and can't be opened on the phone. The Open in Oppermind button in an invite email works on the phone too, and the item opens once you sign in with the address it was sent to. For one of your own documents, spreadsheets, decks, designs or projects, tap Share / Collaborate at the end of the editor toolbar. That turns on live editing and opens the share sheet, with Email, Access, Share and a People with access list where Remove takes someone off. The same messages confirm each invite email. An item you open from Shared with me stays the owner's and isn't added to your own files.
Practice. On your phone, share one of your own documents with a colleague. Then open a document someone shared with you from Shared with me, make a small edit and check that it shows on a computer.
At training on Tuesday night, Mei opens the Lighting budget on her phone, taps Share / Collaborate and adds priya@saltbushnetball.org.au, the new coach, with Can view. Tom then opens the sheet from Shared with me on his phone and changes the second electrician's quote to $18,400.
Split the work so changes don't collide
Give each person their own section, slide or task, and know which parts of each editor are shared live.
When people work on different parts of an item, their changes merge. Two people changing the same part at the same moment can clash. In a document, keep to separate paragraphs, because two people typing in one paragraph at once can end up with it doubled or with one change lost. In Slide, everything on one slide travels as a single piece, so agree who takes which slide. A coloured dot beside a slide number shows which slide someone is on, and your own view stays put when they move. In Sheet the latest value typed into a cell wins, and in Project the latest change to a task wins. Some things aren't shared live at all. In Sheet, cells, new sheet tabs and tab names travel live, but charts, conditional formatting and frozen rows or columns don't. In Design, only the page on screen is shared live, so work on a multi-page design one page at a time.
Practice. Before a session, agree who takes which section, slide or task. Work at the same time, then read the result together at the end.
Mei asks Tom to take slide 3, Budget and club share, in the Committee briefing deck while she rewrites slide 2.
Keep a safe copy and manage access
Snapshot a document or deck before a big session, and change or remove access when the team changes.
Before a group edits a document or deck, choose Version history from the More menu and press Snapshot now. Each snapshot is listed as a version with its date and who took it. Restore puts that version back after you confirm and adds a version marked Restored from version 1, or whichever number you chose. Saving doesn't add versions, and only the owner can take a snapshot or restore one. Changes made by people with Can edit are kept in the live session and reach your saved copy the next time you have the item open, so open it once they have finished. To change someone's access, share with the same address again and pick the other level. The message starts Access updated, no new email goes, and a copy they have open reconnects with the new access. The × on their row, or Remove on the phone, removes their access and closes the item for them straight away, with a message that their changes are no longer saved.
Practice. Take a snapshot of a shared document, make a change, then restore the snapshot. Move one person from Can view to Can edit by sharing with their address again, and remove someone who no longer needs access.
On Thursday night, before the committee meets, Mei opens the More menu in the Committee briefing deck, chooses Version history and presses Snapshot now.
Keep going
Make the learning stick
Start with one real piece of work.
Open Oppermind beside the lesson, apply each step, and leave with something you can use.