Monday, February 6, 2017

Anyone Can View

Never accidently share a document with the wrong permissions again.  
Have you ever created a Google document and passed a link to that document on to your students or colleagues only to get a message from them saying they don’t have permission to view it?  That is because by default Google documents are private. You have to click on the “Share” button and change the share permissions to “Anyone with the link can view”. With everyone being so busy, it is not hard to forget to take these steps.  
Enter the “Anyone Can View” Extension
If you add the “Anyone Can View” extension, anytime you open a document that has the ability to be shared (doc, sheet, slide, etc.) the extension will become active.  If you click on the extension the document sharing permissions are changed to “Anyone with the link can view” and it copies the URL to the clipboard. The link to the document is then ready for you to paste into an email, into a Google Classroom assignment, or into social media with the correct privileges for the person to be able to view it.
This extension was created by Alice Keeler, the author of “50 Things You Can Do WIth Google Classroom”.   Watch her explanation of how the extension works.
How to install the extension
  1. Go to the Chrome Web Store
  2. Search for “Anyone Can View”
  3. Look for the “Alice Keeler Anyone Can View” extension
  4. Click add to Chrome
  5. Click add extension
You will see the “Anyone Can View” extension with this icon in the upper right corner.  Just click on this whenever you want to automatically change the permission of a Google Doc to “Anyone with the link can view”.  
~Happy Sharing

For more helpful information and the archive of previous Check This Out! Digests, go to http://www.greenlocalschools.org/technology.aspx