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Claude Docs: a document your team edits with Claude
Claude Docs produces a living document, stored in your account, that your team edits, comments on and exports with Claude, instead of an answer to copy somewhere else.
On 16 September 2026, Anthropic's release notes announced that you can ask for a design, a presentation or a document in any conversation. Claude Design, which already existed, now works inside the conversation, Claude Slides gives presentations their own starting point, and Claude Docs arrives to write living documents with Claude and your team. This lesson covers Claude Docs, whose help page describes sharing, comments and multi-person editing. What follows does not carry over as is to Slides or Design.
Who has access: two pages, two answers
As of 28 September 2026, two official pages do not say the same thing. The release notes announce artifacts, including Design, Slides and Docs, as available on all plans, the free plan included, and place all three products in beta, off by default, on Enterprise plans only. The Claude Docs page announces Docs in beta on Pro, Max, Team and Enterprise plans, on by default on Pro, Max and Team, off on Enterprise until an organisation owner switches it on. It adds that it is not yet offered to organisations that have chosen a reinforced security setup: encryption keys managed by the organisation, zero data retention, or a HIPAA configuration for health data. On a free plan, only your own account settles it.
Creating a document
Ask for a document in any conversation, choose Output then Docs in the input area, or start your message with the /docs command:
/docs Minutes of Tuesday's board meeting, decisions taken and people made responsibleClaude asks a few questions, then writes the document before your eyes. The Artifacts tab also offers templates. On the mobile app, you can ask for a document and view it full screen, but editing it, starting from a template or changing its sharing is done on the web or the desktop app.
Editing together, with Claude
People with editor access work on the document at the same time as you and Claude: each change appears in real time and saves itself, attributed to its author, person or Claude. For a precise touch-up, select a passage, leave a comment and mention @Claude: it replies in the thread, makes the change and explains what it changed. Claude acts with the rights of the person who calls on it, so it does not edit a document for someone who only has viewer access.
Sharing, exporting, counting
A document starts out private. To share it, open it and click Share. On Pro and Max, anyone who has the link can open it. On Team and Enterprise, you invite people, a group or the whole organisation, and sharing outside the organisation is not possible for now. Opening a shared document requires a Claude account. Two access levels exist, viewer and editor, with no level reserved for comments. The Export button produces a Word, PDF or Markdown file, or a Google Docs, for the tool the rest of the team already uses.
Each document counts toward your plan's usage limits, like the rest of your work with Claude, and a long document drawn from several sources uses more than an ordinary message. The lesson on the token and the context window explains this quota, and the lesson on the merger of chat and Cowork describes the conversation from which you now ask for such a document.
Viewer against editor, three capabilities
| Access level | Reading the document | Editing and commenting | Export to a file |
|---|---|---|---|
| Viewer | Reads the document. | Cannot edit or comment, and Claude changes nothing at their request. | Cannot export the document. |
| Editor | Reads the document. | Edits the text, comments on a passage and can mention @Claude there. | Exports to Word, PDF, Markdown or Google Docs. |
Availability of Claude Docs according to the page consulted
| Case | Release notes | Claude Docs page |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | Available. | Absent from the list of plans. |
| Pro, Max, Team | Available. | Beta, on by default. |
| Enterprise | Beta, off until an owner switches it on. | Beta, off until an owner switches it on. |
| Reinforced security (CMEK, ZDR, HIPAA) | Not mentioned. | Not yet available. |
A coordinator at a non-profit asks Claude, in her usual conversation, for meeting minutes as a Claude Docs document. Once the document is created, she clicks Share and invites two colleagues from her organisation with editor access. While she reads the document, a sentence attributed to one of the two colleagues appears in the second paragraph. She then exports the document as a Word file and emails it to a member.
Write in one sentence what this situation establishes, and in one sentence what it does not establish.
What this establishes: It establishes that the document was shared for editing with two colleagues, that a sentence attributed to one of them appeared in it while she was reading, and that a Word file was produced from it and sent to a member.
What this does not establish: It does not establish that the second colleague opened the document, nor that the member opened the Word file, nor that the added sentence is accurate.
The three most common miscalibrations
- Too broad It establishes that both invited colleagues edited the document at the same time as the coordinator was reading it.
- Too narrow It establishes that minutes were formatted by Claude, without making it possible to say who else had access to them.
- Beside the point It establishes that the member who received the Word file has a Claude account.
- The /docs command, placed at the start of a message, directly requests a Claude Docs document.
- A comment that mentions @Claude on a selected passage gets a targeted touch-up, explained in the thread.
- Claude never has more rights on a document than the person who calls on it.
- Outside the organisation, a Team or Enterprise document cannot yet be shared, whereas a Pro or Max document opens by simple link with a Claude account.
- On the availability of Docs, the product page and the release notes diverge, and your own account remains the only arbiter for a free plan.
Open a Claude conversation and type /docs followed by an everyday work subject, minutes or a procedure. If the document opens, click Share and note, without inviting anyone, the recipients and access levels the menu offers you. If it does not open, note your plan and place it in the table of this lesson.
Every datable claim in this lesson links here to the public text behind it. A source that does not open proves nothing.