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Sharing

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Share links let you send a document to another person as a URL. A free link carries the document inside the link itself. A Pro short link handles large documents and stores them for a limited time. This page explains both, and what the recipient sees.

To share the current document:

  1. In the editor toolbar, select Share. You can also open the Command Palette with Cmd+K (Mac) / Ctrl+K (Windows, Linux) and choose Share via URL.
  2. Prettify builds the link and copies it to your clipboard.
  3. Send the link to the person you want to share with.

Anyone with the link can open the document. It opens in the editor, where they can view it, edit it, or save their own copy.

Sharing needs an internet connection only for Pro short links. An inline link is built on your device.

A free share link is an inline link. Prettify compresses the document and puts it in the link after the # sign.

Browsers never send the part of a URL after # to a server. The document is not uploaded. It travels only inside the link you choose to send.

An inline link has a size limit. The whole link must stay under about 32 KB. Most small and medium documents fit. A larger document cannot use an inline link.

An inline link looks like this:

https://prettify.tools/app/editor#share=<compressed-document>

If a document is too large for an inline link and you do not have Pro, Prettify offers an upgrade instead of a link.

For a document too large for an inline link, Pro creates a short link. A short link looks like this:

https://prettify.tools/s/abc123def456

Before anything is uploaded, Prettify shows a dialog. The dialog states:

  • The destination: the Prettify share service on Cloudflare.
  • The data sent: the document plus your license key.
  • The document size.
  • The retention: one year.

Select Upload and create link to confirm. Prettify then uploads the document, creates the short link, and copies it to your clipboard.

A short link has these limits and rules:

  • The document can be up to 10 MB.
  • The link expires one year after you create it.
  • The link id is derived from the document content, so sharing the same document again gives the same link.

What the recipient sees

When someone opens your link, Prettify loads the document into the editor. They can change the format and view, edit the document, and save their own copy. Their changes do not affect your copy.

If a link is invalid, damaged, or expired, Prettify shows "Share not found".

Privacy and limits

An inline link keeps the document off every server. It is never uploaded. See Privacy.

A Pro short link stores the compressed document on Cloudflare for one year. Anyone with the link can open it during that year.

Short links have two more rules:

  • You cannot revoke a short link before it expires.
  • Deactivating your Pro license does not delete short links you already created.

Prettify limits short links to 100 per license key each hour.