At Acrobat.com, we’re all about sharing. We love to share. We love to help you share. We love to share with you that we love to help you share. We could share our feelings about sharing for hours. Luckily for you, we won’t do that (much) and would rather spend some time letting you know about the updated file sharing mechanism in this latest release of Acrobat.com. Now you won’t have to share for hours; it’ll only take you moments.
We have already covered sharing Acrobat.com Workspaces and managing members, so let’s focus on sharing individual files.
Context-Sensitive Share Button
Sharing individual files is more intelligent today with Acrobat.com. The Share Button in the lower left of your Acrobat.com file organizer window is context-sensitive and will now present different options depending on whether you are sharing a file or a Workspace.
To begin, select a file from your file organizer, whether it’s within a Workspace or not. Then click the “Share File” button in the lower left corner of the screen. You’ll get a pop-up menu in that same corner that gives you three options:
- Move the file to an existing Shared Workspace and an existing or new folder (which is, to share with a predesignated group of collaborators if they are part of a Shared Workspace);
- Share the file with Individuals (and handpick the people you’d like to see, review or co-author the document);
- or Publish the file and make it freely available to anyone who has the web link (URL) or embed code without having to sign in with an Adobe ID.
Actually, there’s a fourth option: if the file that is owned or co-authored by you is already being shared with others, or is part of a Shared Workspace that you own or administer, then you’ll also see the option to change the existing sharing options.
This new Sharing Button condenses what before might have been several steps into just one. We hope that you use this new sharing power wisely and well.
Streamlined Collaborator Bar
Newly updated to Acrobat.com’s file organizer is the spiffy Collaborator Bar. This bar, located as before at the bottom of your file organizer window, has been streamlined to make it easier to view and manage team members that you are sharing a file with. Now when you share a document with several others in Acrobat.com, you will see a single stacked group that tells you how many people are currently sharing the file. Click on the group icon and you will see an expanded yet tidy pop-up list of everyone you are currently collaborating with on the file. No more will you find yourself digging around a never-ending line of barely visible images.
If the file being shared with individuals is also part of a Shared Workspace, the individuals will be organized in to those that only have access to the file, and those that are members of the Shared Workspace.
As before, you can hover over a person to see when or even if they viewed the file. So when that consultant you hired for your latest social media project claims they had taken a look at your latest requirements document, you’ll know whether he has been procrastinating or not.
If you are a co-author of the file, you can also change the role of and remove single, specific individuals using the pop-up context menu next to their name, or all individuals from the pop-up menu in the top right or top left.
Now isn’t that all so much more civilized?
Comments
sharing should be for everyone. If you’re required to sign up in order to ‘share’ it makes the sharing experience a whole lot less shareable.
[Reply from Ali: Thanks for your comment. You can share a document without viewers having to sign in by choosing the "Publish" option from the "Share File" menu in the lower left of your Acrobat.com window. That will give you a URL and embed code to share with anyone you wish to.]
eu gosto do pdf acrobat ,mas não tenho muita abilidade pos não sei falar nem ler ingles e não tam versão em portugues ,moro no brasil ,estado de sergipe capital de Aracaju me ajude pos quero muito trabalhar com acrobat pdf obrigada
[Reply from Ali: Obrigado pelo seu comentário. Although the user interface of Acrobat.com is not available in Portuguese, you can still create documents in Buzzword in Portuguese (both Portugal and Brazil) by choosing the language from the spellcheck options in the lower right of the window. And of course, you can upload, convert and share documents that were written in Portuguese too.]
When I share a workspace I anticipate that the individual who receives access will only be able to see files in that workspace.
If they click on All Files they see ALLTHE FILES in workspaces that they have access to PLUS all files in my Personal Workspace.
Any other glitches with access control? This is a real problem whwre we use multidisciplinary teams and seek to compartment information.
Is this an error? Can you fix it?.
Hi John,
When someone clicks on “All Files” in their Acrobat.com file organizer they will see all files that are in Shared Workspaces, plus the files that are there in own Personal Workspace, plus files that have been shared with them from others individually. They will not see files that are in your Personal Workspace. If it seems that way, then it means those files are being shared individually by you. To check if a file in your Personal Workspace is being shared, click on its icon in the file organizer and look at the lower collaboration bar to see who has access to it, or click on the Share File button.
If you have suggestions for improvements to sharing, the Acrobat.com team are always willing to hear them: send an e-mail to acrobat.com_feedback@adobe.com with your ideas.
Thanks,
Ali Hanyaloglu
Does Acrobat.com offer “View Only” option to people we wish to access the document to view but not allow them to print or download?
I want the ability to share a file as “read-only” but that is not an option at the workspace level. I saw it somewhere else (buzzword?) but my only choice when sharing the entire workspace is Co-Author or Administrator. Is there some reason Reader can not be added at the workspace level?
Hi Bob,
There isn’t this level of granularity at the workspace level because there isn’t any way to control access that closely for every type of file. In Buzzword, it’s possible to share a document as “read-only”, but uploaded documents that are shared are either “on” or “off”.
Hope that helps – or at least explains a bit…
Rebecca