How to make LucidChart Read-Only even to people with Read-Write access?

In Lucidchart you can make diagrams read-only even for team members with write access by utilizing the "Publish" feature. Here's how you can achieve this:

1. Open your diagram in Lucidchart.

2. Click on the "Share" button located at the top-right corner of the editor.

3. In the sharing settings make sure that "Anyone with the link can view" is selected.

4. Click on the "Copy Link" button to obtain the sharing link.

5. Open a new browser tab and paste the link into the address bar.

6. At the end of the URL add "/viewer" (without quotes) before any additional parameters or slashes.

For example if the link is "https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/view/123456" modify it to "https://www.lucidchart.com/documents/viewer/123456".

7. Press Enter or visit the modified URL.

Now the diagram will be viewable in read-only mode even for team members with write access. They won't be able to make any edits or modifications to the diagram using this link. The diagram will remain in read-only mode as long as the viewer uses the modified URL.

Please note that the read-only mode applies only when accessing the diagram using the modified URL. If team members access the diagram through their Lucidchart accounts or using the original editing link they will have full edit privileges. Make sure to share the modified URL with the team members who require read-only access to the diagram.

Thanks for the response!  Unfortunately it does not seem to work. My only options on the share popup are:

• Any Lucid users
• Anybody at (mycompany).com 

Neither one of those generates a link of the form you describe. They all look like this (modified for security):

https://lucid.app/lucidchart/aca48750-81a0-44db-a300-4145766xxxxx/edit?invitationId=inv_2a730784-5970-49d9-9e59-xxxxx

BTW - it's astounding that this would not be a simple option. Publishing a read-only (with hyperlinks still active) version of a document to team members is a critical capability and the lack of it defeats much of the tool's usefulness. 

Hi there

Jumping in here to help a bit -- in order to Publish you can navigate to File > Publish. This will allow you to generate a link that will be read-only. 

In order to generate a read-only link using the Share modal you will need to ensure you have shareable links activated from your Admin Panel. To get there navigate to the Admin Panel > Security > Sharing > Shareable Links. 

Hope this helps -- please let me know if you have any other questions! 

Thanks for the quick response - that is great but I do NOT want the document to be public (via the URL). We need it to be internal only but not editable (we want to use it as a clickable dashboard usable by people who do have edit licenses).

Hey Paul

Aha I see -- it would be best to start by checking the Share settings setup in your Admin Panel. From there you can follow the steps outlined here to ensure that your share sharing permissions match what you would like to see. 

Hope this helps -- if not feel free to reach out to us directly at support@lucidchart.com. We would be happy to help! 😎

Thanks!
Just to be absolutely clear - we are talking about sharing the same document with the same team members (including the author/owner of the document) in two modes:
1. regular editing (just a shared editable doc)
2. read-only (for use as a dashboard - not editable even to the author/owner but with any embedded hyperlinks still remaining active)

Hey Paul

Thanks for the clarification -- so this is all possible outside of not being editable by the owner of the document. This part is not possible as the owner of the document will always have access to edit. 

Hoping this helps further clarify -- please let me know if not or if you have any other questions! 

It appears that if I replace the .../edit.... in the URL with /view I get something that seems to behave the way I want: 
it displays a read-only version of my own document with links still clickable.

Can you guys make this "official" (add a "publish a read-only clickable view of this document" option)?

Hey Paul

Thank you for the reply! Yes -- as Suleiry mentioned above that is a possibility however the owner of the document would still have edit access via their My Documents page. You would also need to ensure the share settings allow for shareable links so you will need to locate these settings in the Admin Panel as well as change the sharing in the document itself. 

Hope this helps further clarify -- please let me know if you have any other questions!