Phenquestions
To share a photo, we use Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, etc. To share video, we use YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, etc. However, what if you want to share documents online? To do so, there is a tool called Docs.com or Microsoft Docs that will let you upload documents from a computer, OneDrive as well as Sway. Following that, you can share the document publicly or in private. If you are not so familiar with this online tool, you can check out this short Docs.com tutorial that will help you get started with this free online document sharing service from Office Online.
Docs.com tutorial & tips
Docs.com is a very useful site to share documents, excel sheets or create a journal or even blog post. Let us see what all you can do here.
1] Download any document
Docs.com is mainly for sharing documents and Sways. Any person having a Microsoft account can create a Docs.com account and start uploading documents. However, if you want to download any document from this website, here is the trick. You can download any document from this site without prior owner permission. To do so, open the document and hit the Download option visible on the top right section of your screen. The document will be downloaded in .docx format. Do remember to check out the CC license before using any document.
2] Select Creative Commons license
If you are an author and you want to publish your document online on Docs.com, you should use a suitable Creative Commons license to protect your document from being stolen. There are different licenses that are applicable to different scenarios. To set a license, complete the document and make it ready for publishing. While publishing your document, you will find this CC Attribution option. Select a license and Save the document.
3] Customize your profile
Your impression depends on how you present your document as well as your profile. If you have created your Docs.com account for the first time, you will find that your Microsoft account's profile picture is set as your default display picture. You can change your profile picture, background picture, name, website, add a description and more. To do this, open your Docs.com account. It URL should be something like this - https://docs.com/username. Here you will see an Edit option. Click on it to proceed.
4] Embed document into a web page
At times, you may want to show your document to other people. Instead of giving them your document's link, you can embed it into a webpage so that anybody can view that document whenever he or she wants to. Like other Microsoft Office Online tools, you can insert a document of Docs.com into any HTML web page. To do this, open a document that you want to embed. Find out the Embed option visible on the top right corner. If the document belongs to you, you can find the option right on your screen. However, if the document belongs to someone else, you may have to click on the three dotted buttons to find the Embed option.
5] Create a Private document
Suppose, you want to upload a document to your website, but do not want to share the document publicly. Instead, you want to share the document with a particular person. If you want to do this, you can change the privacy of your document and share the link with people to let them view your document on the website. While publishing a document, select Limited instead of Public to create a private document. You will get the document link on the top of your screen.
Hope you find these Docs.com tips helpful.
If you can also check Google Docs tips and tricks to create and share documents in a shared workspace.
