Which of the following options are NOT available in Google Docs

Sharing and simultaneous collaboration are huge benefits to using Google drive—but what if you have to share a Google Doc file (such as a word-processing document) with a user who doesn’t actually have a Google account?

If you’ve only been using Google Drive for storage purposes, you’re missing out. A fantastic feature of Google Drive is the ability to create and work with Google Docs within Drive. Working with Google Docs lets you create word-processing documents, spreadsheets, drawings, presentations and forms online, and work on them simultaneously with other Google account holders.

In fact, Google Drive and Google Docs used to be two separate Google products. But they’re now combined into one product called Google Drive.

When you access Google Drive, you also gain the ability to create these files and store them directly in your Drive.

Once you’ve created a file in Google Docs—say a spreadsheet or a word-processing document—it’s a common scenario to share it with another Google Account user. And if the user doesn’t have a Google Account, all is not lost.

There are three ways to handle the situation:

1. Email the file to the user as an attachment

With your Google document open in Google Drive, click File, and choose ‘Email as attachment’.

You’ll be brought to a dialog screen where you choose a file format and type in the recipient’s email address. Your file will be sent via email as an attachment in the format you choose. You can choose to send the file as HTML, PDF, Rich Text, or Microsoft Word.

The benefit of this method is that it’s fast and easy to get your content to the people who need to see it. The downside is that it means there are two distinct versions of your document floating around—and you cannot collaborate with the recipient online.

2. Allow anyone with a link to edit your document

Here’s a vastly underutilized feature of Google Docs: people don’t actually need a Google account to view a file created with Google Docs—or even to edit it.

It’s all about setting the visibility options of your document. You can set the visibility so that anyone who has a direct link can either view or edit your document.

To change the settings, open your document and click Share on the top right. Under the section titled “Specific people can access,” click Change.

In the Sharing Settings dialog, choose ‘Anyone’ with the link. Then at the bottom of the dialog, under access, click ‘Can view’ and, if necessary, change it to ‘Can edit’. Make sure you click the green ‘Save’ button when you’re done.

You’re almost done! Clicking the ‘Save’ button will return you to the Share dialog where you can send the link to people who need to edit your Google doc. These people do not need to sign in to be able to edit your document.

When you look at the revision history for your document, people who have edited it without signing in are titled anonymous; they can choose an avatar to differentiate themselves if multiple anonymous users are working on the document at the same time.

The benefit of this method is that people who do not have a Google account can edit the document without having to log in.

The downside (and cautionary statement!) is that if this link gets into the wrong hands, your document can be viewed AND edited without a username to be held accountable for the changes. If you’ve sent the link to multiple people, you also can’t be sure which user made which change.

However, at any time, you can go back into the sharing settings and revoke access by choosing specific people in the sharing settings dialog.

3. Ask the user to create a Google Account.

If the user doesn’t already have a Google user account, you can ask them to create one. There are all sorts of benefits in it for them: they’ll get access to the entire library of Google products such as Google Sites, YouTube video uploads, a free Gmail account, and Google Calendar, to name a few.

And of course, they’ll be able to access your document, edit and collaborate, and still be held accountable for the changes they make in the revision history. It’s the ideal situation for security, as you can specifically share the document with them—without having to share it with everyone.

You’ll notice I didn’t say they had to create a Gmail account—just a Google account. A common misconception is that those are one and the same, but Gmail is just another of Google’s many products. You can sign up for a Google account using any email address you have. It becomes a unified login across all of Google’s products, such as Google Drive, YouTube, Sites, etc. You can use a Gmail or your company’s existing Google Apps account to act as a unified login across Google, but it’s not required.

As you can see, there are plenty of options when you need to share a Google document with a non-Google account holder. But the benefits of having a Google account are vast and worth checking out.

Looking to become more productive with Google products? Check out these LinkedIn Learning courses:

For a few months now, I am using text-to-speech in Google Docs to read aloud my documents so I could make them sound more natural. You probably don’t know that Google Docs comes with dedicated text-to-speech options to allow your screen reader app to read aloud Google Docs documents.

If you are missing out on this awesome Google Docs feature, I’ve got you covered. In this post, I’ll show you how to use the Google Docs text-to-speech feature to read aloud documents. Additionally, I will also share a nifty third-party text-to-speech tool that is definitely worth checking out if you don’t want to use a desktop screen reader.

1. Use Google Docs Screen Reader to read text aloud

Before you use Google Docs screen reader options, you need to get a dedicated screen reader software that will read aloud the text in a Google Docs document. You don’t need to go through this step if you already have a screen reader software built-in, like Apple VoiceOver or ChromeVox. If not, then I will recommend you use the NVDA screen reader software.

It’s a free open source screen reader software that is small in size and very easy to use. There are no special settings to configure to use it with Google Docs. Just download and install the software and follow the below instruction to use it with Google Docs.

If you don’t want to use desktop screen reader software, then you can also use this Screen Reader Chrome extension by Google. This screen reader will only work inside the Chrome browser rather than your whole operating system. It also doesn’t require any special setting configuration to work with Google Docs.

Your screen reader software will not be able to read the text inside a Google Docs document if the Google Docs screen reader option isn’t enabled. Here’s how to enable screen reader in Google Docs:

Click on the “Tools” menu in the top bar and select “Accessibility settings” in it.

Now check the checkbox next to “Turn on screen reader support” and click on “OK”.

Use text-to-speech in Google Docs

After following the above instructions, you will notice a new Accessibility menu in the top bar; you can use it to read aloud text in Google Docs. If you still can’t find the Accessibility option, then press the Ctrl+Alt+Z keys on your keyboard.

1. Open up the document and select the text you want to read aloud (press Ctrl+A to select all the text).

2. Now click on “Accessibility” in the top menu bar and select “Speak selection” in the “Speak” option. Your screen reader software will read aloud the text.

There is also a Google Docs keyboard shortcut for this purpose. Once the required text is selected, press Ctrl+Alt+X keys to start reading aloud.

Note: Some screen reader software can directly read-aloud text just by highlighting, so you may not need to go through the above process depending on your screen reader software.

2. Use a text-to-speech Chrome extension

You can also use a text-to-speech Chrome extension for Google Docs if you don’t want to use a dedicated screen reader software. A text-to-speech extension will copy the Google Docs content in its own interface and then read it aloud. For this purpose, I really like the Read Aloud Chrome extension. It’s astonishingly easy to use, yet it’s very powerful.

The extension works on almost every web page, including web apps like Google Docs. Just open up the document, and click on the extension button to start reading the text aloud. You also don’t need to select the text, Read Aloud will automatically recognize text that should be read aloud.

If you go to its settings, you can select voice type, volume, pitch, and speed. Best of all, Read Aloud can read the text in over 40 different languages. There is a good chance your particular language is supported.

If Read Aloud didn’t work well for you, then you can use the Speak It Chrome extension as an alternative. This extension also works very similarly, but it also lets you directly highlight text in your browser to read aloud.

Note: You don’t need to enable the screen reader option in Google Docs to use these text-to-speech Chrome extensions.

Wrapping up

If you are blind or vision impaired, then you should definitely use your screen reader software with Google Docs by enabling screen reader support in Google Docs. However, if you just want to quickly read aloud your Google Docs document, then using a text-to-speech extension is much better. Do let us know in the comments how you’ll be using text-to-speech in Google Docs.

Let us know if you liked the post. That’s the only way we can improve.