Open up your ideas to the world with SEO-indexing, customizable URLs, and a maker profile page.
Publishing is a sharing option that lets you broadcast your ideas to the world. Your doc gets a unique URL, which unfurls when pasted in many sites (including social networks).
If you set your published doc to discoverable, your doc will be made available for web search indexing so that it can find an even broader audience. You can also determine how people can interact with your doc, and whether they can copy it to use as a template. Read on to learn more.
Heads up: this article will walk you through publishing docs to the world. If you only want to publish your doc to your team, check out this article.
Within this article, you’ll find...
Publish your doc
ℹ️ Please note, you need to be the doc owner (and therefore a Doc Maker) to publish a doc.
Publishing a Coda doc is not too different from sharing it! You'll use the Share button in the upper-right corner of your doc to open the share dialog, then click the globe icon at the top of this dialog.
💡 Tip: Before publishing a doc, you may want to consider adding a cover photo, a subtitle, and/or an author byline. Learn how here. For more tips on how to prepare your doc for publishing, check out this great video.
Here are all the steps you'll follow to publish a doc:
Click the Share button in the upper-right corner of your doc
Click on the globe icon at the top of this share dialog. This will lead you to the Publish tab.
If this is your first time publishing from your Coda account, you will first need to create your maker profile. Click the Create profile button to get started. Learn more about creating your maker profile here.
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Once you've created your maker profile, it's time to get publishing. Use the first group of settings to control who can access your doc and how they’ll interact with it.
Publish mode: You can set your docs to View, Play, or Edit. We'll talk a bit more about each of these interaction levels below!
Allow others to copy this doc: Should users see a button encouraging them to copy your doc to create their own version of the doc?
Discoverable by anyone: By default, this is turned on, which allows your doc to be found in search engines and in Coda’s doc gallery. Toggle this setting off to prevent others from finding your doc in searches. If you want to learn more about publishing a doc to only your team, head to this article.
Doc category: If you have Discoverable by anyone turned on, this will determine under which category your doc appears in the gallery.
Audience: Choose between anyone the doc is shared with, anyone in your domain, or anyone on the internet.
Published doc URL: Leave the default doc URL or customize it.
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Next, open the Appearance menu to adjust the visual details of your doc.
Doc cover photo: Toggle this on to show the first page’s cover photo in your published doc.
Doc subtitle: Toggle this on to show the first page’s subtitle in your published doc.
Show pages on the top nav: Toggle this on to make your pages look like tabs at the top of your published doc, with subpages as drop-down options.
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If you wish to publish on a custom domain, click the Custom domain section to start this process. Otherwise, skip to the next step.
Learn more about publishing on custom domains here.
Next, click into the Advanced settings section. Here, you can choose whether to display a sign-up modal in your doc. If users sign up to Coda through this modal, you'll earn Coda credit. Learn more here.
Click Open preview to see how your doc will look when published.
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Finally, click the Publish doc button to publish your Coda doc.
Choose how people can interact with your doc
Publishing currently supports three levels of interaction: view, play, and edit. These levels apply to anyone with a link to your doc (including those who find it via search engine, if you have Discoverable by anyone toggled on).
View: If you select the view option, anyone with the link will be able to view your doc, but not interact with it or edit it. Please note controls like sliders, reactions, scales and buttons that would edit the doc will be disabled. This is a good option for articles, manuals, blog posts, etc.
Play: Docs set to play can be viewed and interacted with by anyone (including those without Coda accounts or are not logged in), but their changes won't be saved. This is a good option for quizzes, calculators, worksheets, etc.
Edit: Docs in edit mode will allow anyone to view, interact with, and make changes to your doc. Changes made to docs in edit mode will be saved. This is a good option for voting, brainstorming, crowdsourcing, etc.
Please note you have to be signed in to your Coda account to edit the published doc. If you are logged out, the buttons and controls will be disabled. Sign up or log in to use them.
Adjust the publishing settings
Even after you've published your doc, you can still adjust the publishing settings as needed. To do so, follow these steps:
Within the doc, click on Share in the upper-right corner
At the top of this share dialog, click on the globe icon
This will open the publishing settings tab. Make any changes that are needed. Note that changes will be saved automatically.
💡 Alternatively, you can access the publishing settings by clicking on the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner of the doc, selecting Doc settings, then choosing Share to web.
FAQs
How can I learn more about my maker profile and maker username?
You can learn more about creating your maker profile, editing your maker username, and more - in this article.
Can I publish a private doc and give just my team access?
Absolutely! Check out this article to learn how.
How will edits to my published docs be applied?
Any edits you make to your published docs, including edits to the doc settings and interact mode, will be reflected automatically after a few minutes.
How can I unpublish a published doc?
To unpublish a currently published doc, click on the Share button in the upper-right corner of your doc, then click the globe icon at the top of this share window. This will open the publishing settings. Click the Unpublish button in the panel.
Can I see how many times my published doc has been viewed or copied?
Yes! After publishing your doc, you can see statistics for how many times your doc has been viewed or copied in your doc settings. Open your doc (not the published version), click the three-dot menu in the upper-right corner, select Doc settings, then Statistics. Check out the Publishing Stats article in our Help Center for more details.
How long will it take for my published doc to show up in Google search results?
It can take at least a week for Google to index your doc and show it in their search results. If you recently published or updated your doc, check back in a week to see if it is still not showing in search results.
What happens if I transfer ownership of my published doc?
When you transfer ownership of your published doc to another member of your workspace, there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
Your owner status will turn into editor status
You will not be able to transfer ownership back to yourself
Your published doc's URL/link will change
Can I put my published doc behind a paywall?
Published docs are not paywalled at this time, but we know our Makers would love to make money with their docs! We will continue to keep this in mind as we evolve our current product offering.
Why am I being prompted to sign in to read a published doc?
After viewing a certain number of published docs or pages, you may be asked to sign in to continue.
If you already have a Coda account, signing-in will make it easier to copy docs that you wish to use as templates, and help you engage with interactive features. Additionally, signing up and signing in helps foster meaningful engagement across the Coda Community.
If you don’t already have a Coda account, you’ll be asked to create one. If you do so from a prompt in a published doc, you’ll earn $10 in free Coda credit to apply towards paid plans. The author of the doc you were reading will also earn $10 in Coda credit for themselves.
For more on signing in and out of Coda, see here.
How are you policing published content?
All Coda docs must adhere to Coda's Content, Username and Community Policies. Our Content Policies apply to all content associated with your presence on Coda, which includes (but may not be limited to), your published docs, embedded content within your published docs, cover photos and other images, username, bio and maker profile.
While we are not proactively censoring any content, if you encounter a published Coda doc that you think violates these policies & guidelines, please scroll to the footer at the bottom of the doc and click Report. We'll ask you to provide a few details before submitting, and then our team will review and take any appropriate action.
If I use a photo from Unsplash in my cover image, do I have to provide attribution or acquire a license?
Nope! It's not required, although attribution is always appreciated by photographers in the Unsplash community. Check out Unsplash's licensing details page for more information: https://unsplash.com/license