How to share a Word document?
Written by Cameron James·November 1, 2026Quick answer
To share a Word document, open it, click Share, add the email addresses of the people you want, choose whether they can edit or only view, and send. If the file is not already in OneDrive or SharePoint, Word asks you to save it there first. If you just want to hand someone a static copy, use Send a copy and pick Word or PDF instead.
Key facts
- In Word, Share opens a pane where you enter names or email addresses, add an optional message and send. You can also copy the link and paste it into an email or chat.
- Sharing by link works best when the file lives in OneDrive or SharePoint. If it does not, Word prompts you to save it there before it shares.
- In Word for the web, the permission options are Can edit, Can review, Can view and Can't download.
- In Word for Windows, editing is allowed by default. To make a shared link view-only, open the link settings and untick Allow editing.
- Link settings let you choose who can use the link, from anyone who receives it to specific people only.
- Send a copy is separate from sharing a link. It emails the document as an attachment, in Word or PDF format, and the recipient gets their own copy rather than the live file.
- Once people are editing a shared document, the Share area shows who else is in the file and coloured flags show where each person is working.
Share a link when people need to work on the file
Click Share, type the names or emails, pick Can edit or Can view, and hit send. That is the whole job. If the document is saved on your laptop, Word will ask you to move it to OneDrive or SharePoint first, because a link needs somewhere to point.
The setting I would check every time is who the link works for. Specific people is the tightest option, and anyone-with-the-link is the loosest. Word for Windows also lets you untick Allow editing, which turns the same link into a read-only one. I would not guess at the other menu labels, as they shift between Windows, Mac, mobile and the web, so use the Share pane in your own version.
Send a copy when they only need to read it
Not everything needs a live link. If you are sending a finished quote or report, Send a copy emails it as a Word file or a PDF and the person gets their own version. The catch is that you lose track of it the moment it leaves. There is no version control, you cannot see whether it was opened, and three people replying with three edited copies is a special kind of mess. The Google equivalent is in how to share a Google Doc.
I sent a lot of proposals this way before I knew better, and the honest answer to "did they read it?" was always a shrug.
If it is a finished document, share it as a PDF link instead
For anything people should read rather than edit, a PDF behind a single link is cleaner than a Word attachment. Export the Word file to PDF and share that. LiveDocument lets you attach a short video walkthrough to the PDF, share it as one link and see which pages got read. It is not a place for people to co-edit, so for that, stay with Word and a OneDrive link. If you are weighing it against OneDrive for plain file sharing, I laid that out in LiveDocument vs OneDrive.
The Bottom Line
Share a link when people need to work on the same file, and send a copy when they only need to read it. Choosing view-only before you send is the cheapest way to stop a draft being rewritten.
Written by Cameron James