A bakery has four staff on two shifts. Each one writes the day's sales in a notebook, and the owner adds it all up at night. A building contractor collects site hours from six workers on WhatsApp and copies them into a sheet every Saturday. Both are doing the same job twice.
The fix is one shared table. Everyone fills the same table on their own phone, and you see every row as it comes in. Here is how to share a table in Table Notes, decide who can change what, and send the data out as a PDF, an Excel sheet, WhatsApp text or a web link.
Step 1: Add people to your table
- Ask each person to install Table Notes and sign in with their email.
- Open your table, tap More (3 dots) at the bottom right, then Add People.
- Tap Add new Collaborator and type their email. The first time, tap Add Member to add them to your team.
- Pick what they can do, then tap Done.
The email must already be registered in Table Notes, which is why step 1 comes first. You can also open Add People from the 3 dot menu on the table's card on the home screen.
Step 2: Choose who can do what
- Contributor: adds new rows and can change only the rows they added. Best for shift staff and workers. You choose if they see everyone's rows or only their own.
- Editor: sees and changes all rows, but can't add new ones. Good for a manager who checks the entries.
- Viewer: can only look. Good for a partner, an accountant or family.
- Administrator: full control of the table, its columns and its people.
You can also pick, column by column, what each person can see or change. Hide a Cost or Profit column from staff, or let an Editor change only a Remarks column. A switch called Allow Export decides if that person can export the table as a file.
How it looks in real life
- Bakery or grocery shop: four staff as Contributors, each adding their shift's sales. The owner sees the day's total at night without collecting a single notebook.
- Construction site: each worker logs date, site and hours as a Contributor who sees only their own rows. The contractor sees everyone's hours, ready for the weekly payment.
- Farm: family members add milk, feed or harvest entries from their own phones. One person keeps Administrator rights so the columns stay tidy.
Data entry works without internet and syncs when the phone is back online. Adding a person needs internet.
Step 3: Send the data out
Open the table and tap Share at the left of the bottom bar. You get:
- Create PDF: a clean report, with your company name and logo if you want (see how to turn a table into a PDF report).
- Create Excel: an .xlsx file for your accountant or for Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.
- Create Word: a .docx file you can edit.
- Share as Text: the rows as plain text, one row per block. Pick WhatsApp from the share list and send it to a group.
- Publish as Website: a web link anyone can open in a browser to view the table, without the app. They can't change anything.
Files are saved on your phone in Documents > Table Notes. Options marked with a crown are premium features.
How many people can I add?
On the free plan a table can have 1 collaborator. To add more, the table's owner needs a premium plan. When the owner has premium, everyone working on that table can use the premium features too.
The takeaway
Share the table once, give each person the right role, and stop copying data from notebooks and chats. When someone outside the team needs it, send a PDF, an Excel file, a WhatsApp message or a link in a few taps.