Public links

A public link lets anyone on the internet who has it read one document. They don’t need an account or to sign in. It’s for sharing a page outside your team, such as release notes, a guide or a proposal.

A public link is read only and shows just the text. People who open it don’t see who wrote it, the comments, suggestions, history or anything else in your workspace.

Make a public link

People with Full access: open Share in the document header. Under General access, choose Anyone with the link. Beside it, Inside the workspace keeps the document’s general access for people in the workspace.

People who can edit, when the workspace allows them: choose Public link in the document header, then Create link.

The link is made at once, and the panel that shows it has:

Copy, to copy the link,
when the link ends: no end date, or choose Change end date to end it in 1, 7, 30 or 90 days,
Stop link, which asks first.

The panel says who made the link. The link depends on that person: it stops if they leave the workspace or become a Viewer. On a restricted document, it also stops if they no longer have Full access there.

Documents you can open show a globe icon in the header and in the sidebar when they have a public link.

Restricted documents

Only people with Full access can make a public link for a restricted document, and Colletta asks first, because anyone with the link will be able to read it, including people outside the workspace. Inside the workspace the document stays restricted.

Stop a public link

A link stops working at once, for everyone, when:

you choose Stop link,
its end date passes,
the document, or a folder it’s in, is moved to the trash,
public links are turned off for the workspace,
the person who made it leaves the workspace, becomes a Viewer or has their account erased,
the document’s general access changes from People in this workspace can edit, or it moves into a folder with a different setting. A link made while the document already had one of those settings keeps working while that setting stays in place and its maker keeps Full access. If the document opens up to the whole workspace again, the link keeps working, but setting it back stops it.

Turning a link on again always makes a new link. An old link never works again, even if you restore the document from the trash.

What people see

The public page shows the document’s title, its text, “Updated” with the date of the last change, and a list of contents for long documents. It’s a plain page that works in any browser and prints cleanly.

Search engines are asked to stay out. Every public page asks search engines not to index it, so people normally find it only if they’re given the link. Anyone with the link can still share it.
The page runs no scripts. Formulas and diagrams show as their text rather than drawn. Drawing them on public pages is planned.
Edits appear about a minute after they settle, not keystroke by keystroke.
Links to other documents work only when those documents have public links too. Otherwise the link’s words show as plain text.
Images show only when they were uploaded into this document. Other images show their description instead.

Public pages are served from a separate web address (pages.colletta.app) from the one you use to open Colletta (app.colletta.app).

For Owners and Admins: Settings, Public links

Workspace Owners and Admins control public links in Settings (at the bottom of the sidebar), on the Public links page.

Who can make public links:

Owners of the document (the default): people with Full access to the document, or to a folder or the workspace above it.
Owners and editors: people who can edit can make links too, except for restricted documents, which stay with the people who have Full access.
Nobody (public links off): no new links can be made, and every public link in the workspace stops at once. Colletta asks first and says how many links will stop.

Live public links lists every document in the workspace that has a public link, who made it and when it ends, with Stop beside each one.

A workspace can have up to 1,000 live public links, and each person can make up to 50 new links a day.

Changes in Settings may ask for two-factor sign-in.