Wondering how to share a Google Slides presentation? Good news! It’s a pretty simple process. There are multiple ways of sharing a Google Slides deck. The right method for you will depend on how you’re going to deliver the slides, the required file type, and your audience. Do you want to share so that a colleague can proof-read and edit, or so that an online audience has the virtual equivalent of a handout?
As Google Slides exists completely online, sharing your presentation with others isn’t limited to an email attachment. This post will show you how to share Google Slides presentations in five ways, there’s definitely something here to meet your needs!
Before we get to that, you need to know where to find the Share function in Google Slides.
Using Share with people and groups, you can share your Google Slides presentation with multiple people at once. This is helpful if your teammates need to collaborate in the same deck or if you require feedback from a colleague or client. Share with people and groups allows you to change the editing permissions per contact. You can allow each contact to simply view the document, or add comments, or edit it themselves. The level of permission you choose can be different for each contact you share with, giving you a lot of flexibility.
When you share using Share with people and groups, Google will ask the user to log in to their Google account to access your shared file. If the user does not have a Google account, they will be unable to access your deck. Just head to the next section to find out how to grant access to non-Google users.
Now you’ve chosen your contact, you can alter their permissions to change how they are able to interact with the deck. There are three options – Viewer, Commenter, and Editor. Simply click on the option currently visible and a drop-down menu will appear allowing you to choose whether your contact can… well… view, comment on or edit the deck. Pretty self-explanatory, right?
But which permission should you give to who and when?
For more tips on how to improve collaboration in Google Slides, check out these 6 ways to get the most out of online collaboration with Google Slides.
Once you’ve selected one of these permission options, you’re free to hit Send. If you tick Notify people, your contact will receive an email letting them know that they have permission to access or interact with your deck.
In the Share with people and groups pane, the owner of the Google Slides presentation appears at the top. Beneath that, you can see who has access to the deck and the status of their permissions. If you want to change someone’s permissions, press the yellow Share button at any time and edit permissions using the same drop-down menu.
To stop sharing with a specific person:
Notice the Give temporary access and Make owner options. If you choose to Give temporary access, you can edit the number of days that your contact has access to your deck. All you have to do is click the number of days next to Access expires to change the expiration date. This can be a great option if you’re working with people outside of your organization, such as clients or agencies. For example, you can schedule the expiration date for the end of a project, once the feedback has been received and the work completed.
Make owner allows you to pass ownership of the deck to another user. After you’ve created a presentation you might need to hand it over, to the presenter for example. You can use this option to give someone else complete control. Use it with caution, however. Once you’ve handed over ownership, you cannot retrieve it – unless the new owner hands it back or chooses to grant you access permissions.
Top tip: If you’re the owner of the deck (if you have created it yourself or have been given ownership by the original creator), there are further sharing options. When you click Share, you’ll notice a cog appears in the top right-hand corner pop up. This allows you to choose whether your Editors can change permissions and share or if Viewers and commenters can see the option to download, print, and copy. All you have to do is tick or untick the box. Easy!
In this window you can also get a link.
This link will only work for people who have been given permission to view, edit or comment on the deck. To change this:
Though the Anyone with link function can be useful, it’s not the most secure option. Remember: the users that you originally shared the link with can continue to share the link with their friends, colleagues, and contacts too, meaning your presentation can be shared endlessly and with anyone! If your deck contains confidential content, you should not use this method.
If you don’t want your viewers to edit your deck, then Share with groups and people may not be the option for you. Instead, choose to Publish to the web. With this option, your deck becomes non-editable, it will simply play as if your deck was a video; auto-advancing through the slides. This means that the viewer won’t have control over which slides they view or the order they view them in. The content of your slides will be visible to anyone and everyone when publishing to the web, so be careful about choosing this option if your slides contain confidential information.
Another method of sharing (or saving) your slides involves downloading the deck as a different type of file.
While there are many formats available, we don’t recommend all of them. For example, when downloading as an Image, whether PNG or JPEG, the quality of your slides can be lost, the presentation will be static, and you can only download one slide at a time. If you’re printing or emailing your deck, downloading as a PDF is the best option to get a static version of your slides.
Since PowerPoint is the closest option to Slides, this format retains the presentability of the deck. However, there’s a chance that your content will corrupt or break as not all features are transferable between file formats. Check for any changes and make tweaks – like removing animations – before sending your presentation to your contacts. To find out more about the differences between PowerPoint and Slides, check out 9 Google Slides features we wish PowerPoint had or if you want to try different platforms to PowerPoint, we recommend The ULTIMATE Guide to PowerPoint Alternatives.
If all these sharing options still aren’t quite cutting it, there’s one more! To share your slides via email:
That’s the last of our five tips on how to share a Google Slides presentation. Now you know pretty much everything there is to know about sharing your slides and, if you want to make those slides even more awesome and effective, you have got to check out these 5 Google Slides video tutorials to level up your skills.
