Sharing Documents

If you are the author or co-author of a document, you can share it with others for feedback.

To initiate sharing from the Document Organizer, select the document, then click the Share button on the left side of the Collaboration bar at the bottom of the screen. Your own name, role, and image (if you have selected one) already appear.

Alternatively, you can choose Share from the document title's context menu or from the Document menu at the top of the window.

If you have the document open, all you need to do is click the Share button or choose Share... from the Document menu.

Note: You must invite a person to share a specific document; you cannot set up a list of collaborators independently of sending them an invitation to share a document.

A dialog box appears where you specify information about the person with whom you are sharing the document:

  1. In the first line, type an email address or use the list of people with whom you are currently sharing documents. You can click the down arrow, or you can begin typing the person's name. Buzzword will match by first name, last name, or email address. When a match is found, the person's icon appears, confirming that you have entered the correct name. If you decide not to share with this person, you must delete the name.
    Note:
    You can invite someone who does not have a Buzzword account. The email this person receives will contain instructions for signing up for an account.
  2. Select the role: Co-author (someone who has complete control over the document except for deleting the document itself — can edit by adding or deleting content, rename, add and delete comments, and so on), Reviewer (someone who can leave comments), Reader (someone who can only read the document).
  3. As indicated by the checkmark, the default is to send invitations via email. If the invitee is in your list of available Buzzword users, sending an email invitation is optional since the document will automatically appear in their Document Organizer. You may want to remove the checkmark by clicking on it.
  4. Click on the next line and repeat these steps to invite additional colleagues. Note that you can invite one person as a reviewer and another as a reader.
  5. If you’ve chosen not to send any emails, click Share.
  6. If you’ve chosen to send email, click Next to see the email message box. You can use this box to customize your invitation message. Click Share to send the message and share the document.

Once you share a document — whether by sharing your document with someone or accepting an invitation to share someone else's — you can see at a glance when a document has been edited or commented on. A red ribbon and seal appear across the middle of the document's icon in your Document Organizer listing. For example, in the illustration in the Document Organizer section, the document "Buzzword Preview Primer" has been changed since the last time Tad Staley, whose Document Organizer this is, looked at it.

Documents that other authors share with you appear automatically in your Document Organizer. Because sending an email is optional, a document may appear in your Organizer without advance notice. All new documents are marked with a red ribbon and seal, just like changed documents.

For more details on the information that appears about each collaborator on the Collaboration bar and the actions you can take, such as changing the role you have assigned to a collaborator, see Collaboration Bar.

You can also remove documents that you are no longer interested in by moving the mouse over your own image on the Collaboration bar and clicking Remove.