Documents on Webpages - Sharing, Embedding, Linking

You may embed documents or folders in a webpage or link to them.

Who can see them? You choose by sharing the file or folder with the right audience.

Shared Drives

Your department’s documents should be stored in a shared drive; each wing staff department has one. You add documents to webpages from your shared drive.

See your shared drives.

See who has access to your department shared drive – find yours under Drive Name.

How to Share Documents

In Google Drive, select the file or folder and click the share button.

For detailed help, see: Share files, Share folders

When you click the Share button, you will use the Get link window to set sharing permissions, both when embedding a document in a webpage and when linking to it. Yes, this is confusing.

You may share with:

See below for how the sharing settings look.

Anyone without permission to a link will be prompted to sign in.

Anyone without permission to an embedded document will see a grey placeholder (empty black box on mobile devices):

Unshared

No individuals have been added in the top window and the bottom window is set to Restricted (to only those in the top window).

Shared with WAWG Members

No individuals have been added in the top window and the bottom window is set to Washington Wing.

Public

No individuals have been added in the top window and the bottom window is set to Anyone with the link.

Specific Individuals

Adding individual WAWG members to the top window and setting the bottom window to Restricted allows only those people to see the document.

Linking vs. Embedding

Linking to a file opens it in a new browser window and allows the user to get the experience Google has designed for viewing that type of content on the user's particular device. Linking may be better than embedding for either folders or files but embedding can be desirable in some cases; it depends on your webpage.

When embedding files or folders, some information may be cut off depending on the size of the embed you place on the webpage. The embed will be scrollable, but this may be a poor experience for the user, especially on a small device like a cell phone.

Embedded folder with truncated view

Embedded file on a narrow screen

Examples

You can test what you see with each of the examples below by viewing this page while signed in with your WAWG account and when signed out (open this page in a private browser window).