Aside from the traditional method of sending a Microsoft Word document to others as an email attachment, you can also upload and share your document from the cloud. All you need to get started is an OneDrive account. Here’s how.
Saving a Word document to the cloud is easy and only requires a few steps on your end. To achieve this, though, you’ll need an OneDrive account. If you’re a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscriber, then you already have one. If not, create a Microsoft account, and sign in to OneDrive.
Once you’ve gotten your OneDrive account set up, open the Word document that you’d like to share. Once open, select the “Share” button, located in the top-right corner of the window.
Once selected, the “Share” window will appear. There are a few options to choose from here. In the “Attach A Copy Instead” group, you can choose to send your document as a Word or PDF attachment. If you select either of these options, your default email client will open with the file set as an attachment.
What we’re interested in though is sharing it from OneDrive. To do this, Select your “OneDrive” account under “Share.”
Once selected, Word will begin uploading a copy of your document to OneDrive. This could take a few moments depending on the size of the document.
The “Send Link” window will appear once the document is finished uploading. By default, anyone with the link can edit. If you’d like to change this setting, select the “Anyone With The Link Can Edit” box.
In the next window, uncheck the box next to (1) “Allow Editing” to remove the privilege. This renders the document read-only. You can also (2) set an expiration date, and/or (3) set a password to improve the security of the document. Once you’ve adjusted the settings, select “Apply.”
Finally, enter the email address of the recipient and click “Send.”
The recipient will receive an email providing access to the document. Please be sure to check your spam folder if you’re the recipient of the invitation, as it sometimes gets flagged.
Alternatively, you can copy the share link and send the link directly to the recipient on a chat app such as Slack or Zoom. To do this, select the “Copy Link” option.
In the next window, select “Copy.”
The link is now copied to your clipboard and ready to be shared. Once the recipient receives the link, they will be able to access the document.