Sharing & Permissions

Every story starts out private: only you can see it. Two places change that.

  • Sharing & Permissions decides who can see and edit the story: anyone with its link, and the collaborators you add by email.
  • The Share button hands out the link once the story is shareable: copy it, post it, or embed the story's slideshow on a web page.

Open Sharing & Permissions

In a story, click the Menu button at the right end of the view's header and choose Sharing & Permissions….

You can also open it:

  • from a story's ⋮ menu in My Stories, or by right-clicking the story there, if you own it;
  • from the Share window, while the story isn't shareable yet (see Share).

The window has two tabs, Public Viewers and Collaborators. Its changes apply when you click Save. Close leaves without them. Opened from My Stories, the same buttons read Save Sharing and Cancel.

Only the story's owner and editors can open this window and change these settings. Anyone else who opens the share window on a story that isn't shareable sees Only its owner or an editor can turn sharing on. instead. If someone else is editing the story when you save, Prewrite tells you and nothing changes; try again once they're done.

Public Viewers

  • Make shareable: Make this story viewable to anyone with the link. They don't need a Prewrite account, and they can look but not change anything.
  • Allow copying: Anyone can make a copy or download this story. This one works only while the story is shareable.

To choose which views and features outside viewers see, use the Presentation tab of Advanced Settings. Your collaborators always see everything.

Collaborators

Collaborators are people you invite by email to view or work on the story with you, even while it's private. Adding them takes a Pro account: yours, whoever owns the story, so an editor without Pro can't add people to a Pro owner's story. Without one, the tab says so and offers View Upgrade Options (see Plans and Billing).

  1. Type the person's email address.
  2. Choose a role from the Select Role... menu.
  3. Click Add. They join the list below, and you can add more.
  4. Leave Send invite to new team members checked to email each new person an invitation.
  5. Click Save.

The roles:

  • Viewer: can open and read the story.
  • Editor: can write and edit the story, change its Advanced Settings and change its sharing.

To change someone's role, pick a new one beside their name. To remove them, click the × beside their name. Then click Save. The owner's row is locked: a story always has exactly one owner. You don't need Pro for this: without it you can still change the role of anyone already on the list, or remove them.

Stories shared with you appear under Shared with me in My Stories. If the owner's plan no longer covers one, it stays there as a locked card that no one can open. Clicking it explains why: it opens again when the story's owner upgrades or chooses it as the one story they keep.

Sharing a Folder

A folder you own in My Stories has Sharing & Permissions in its ⋮ menu too, with the same collaborator list. Changes here apply to this folder and everything inside it — every story and subfolder. A story you move, copy, create or import into a shared folder takes on the folder's sharing. While you're in a shared folder, New Story says so before you make anything. The steps are in Share a Folder with Collaborators.

Share

The Share button in the view's header (and on the Home view) opens the Share window. Anyone who can see the story can use it, your collaborators and outside viewers alike.

  • The story's link, with a button to copy it.
  • Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Reddit and Tumblr each open a window to post the link there.
  • Copy Link copies the link.
  • Embed gives you the code to put the story's slideshow on your own web page.

While the story isn't shareable, the window says This story isn't shareable yet instead. Anyone who can change the story's sharing gets a button, Open Sharing & Permissions, to turn it on. Once they save, the link and buttons appear.

Embed the Slideshow

  1. In the Share window, click Embed.
  2. Click Copy to Clipboard.
  3. Paste the code into your web page's HTML.

View example opens a sample page with the slideshow embedded, so you can see how it will look. The embedded slideshow shows what outside viewers see, and it shows only while the story is shareable.

When a Story Isn't Available

Someone who opens a link to a story they can't see (it's private and they aren't a collaborator, or the link is wrong) gets a page that says This story isn't available. Back to stories takes a signed-in reader to My Stories, and someone who isn't signed in back to the page they came from (or the home page). If someone you sent the link to sees this, turn on Make shareable or add them as a collaborator.

Visitors who aren't signed in also get Sign in, in case their account has access. Once they've signed in, the story opens (see Sign In).