a) The person publishing the document has full control over who has access and can edit it. You can allow anyone to view it, only people with a link (still no G

a) The person publishing the document has full control over who has access and can edit it. You can allow anyone to view it, only people with a link (still no Google Account required from them, the link itself acts as a key/password), users from your domain... it's pretty flexible. b) You can download the original file or, when Google format are used, export to a format convenient for you. I use Google Docs that way constantly. It's by far the easiest and most reliable way I found to share a document, especially spreadsheets, with someone I haven't worked with before.