Obvious/Help Center

Publishing & Sharing Folios

Published April 6, 2026 · Last updated May 29, 2026 · 5 min read

This guide walks you through publishing a folio so anyone can view it with a link — no Obvious account required. You can publish through the standard Obvious Folio URL, and eligible workspaces can serve published Folios from a verified custom domain configured by a workspace administrator.

Publish a folio

  1. Open the folio you want to share.

  2. Click the Share icon in the toolbar. The publish dialog opens.

  3. Choose an access mode — Public, PIN Protected, or Password Protected (details below).

  4. Click Publish. The published URL appears in the toolbar.

Tip: After editing a folio, click Share and publish again to push the changes live. The URL stays the same.

Access modes

Public

Anyone with the link can view the folio. No login, no PIN. Use this for reports, landing pages, or anything you'd share openly.

PIN protected

Viewers enter a 4-digit PIN before they can see the folio. When you select PIN Protected, four input boxes appear — enter your digits and publish. Share the PIN separately from the link.

Republishing later? Leave the PIN field empty to keep the current one. Obvious carries it forward automatically.

Password protected

Viewers enter a password before they can see the folio. When you select Password Protected, set the password in the publish dialog and publish. Share the password separately from the link.

Set a custom slug

By default, your folio URL uses an internal ID: folio.obvious.ai/art_abc123. If your workspace has an org slug, you can make it readable.

In the publish dialog, find the Link section. If the folio is using its artifact ID, select Remove. When Customize appears, select it and enter a slug — lowercase, alphanumeric, hyphens allowed, 50 characters max. Your URL becomes:

folio.obvious.ai/your-org/your-slug

Select Remove to revert to the artifact ID.

Note: Custom slugs require a workspace org slug. No Customize option? Ask a workspace admin to set one in Settings → Workspace.

Use a custom domain for published Folios

A workspace administrator can serve published Folios from a domain such as reports.example.com when Folio custom-domain publishing is available for the workspace. Configuration requires permission to manage workspace settings. If you cannot configure a custom Folio domain, confirm that the capability is available for your workspace and that you have workspace-settings access.

Configure and verify the domain

  1. Open Settings → Workspace and locate the custom domain setting for published Folios.

  2. Enter the hostname you want to use, such as reports.example.com, and select Set Domain.

  3. When the domain shows Pending verification, copy the DNS records shown in Obvious to your domain provider:

    • Add the displayed CNAME record pointing your Folio hostname to folio-custom.obvious.ai.

    • Add the displayed TXT record at _obvious-verify.{your-domain} using the verification value provided in Obvious.

  4. After you save the DNS records with your provider, return to Obvious and select Re-check DNS.

  5. When the setting shows Verified, published Folios can be opened from the custom domain.

DNS timing: DNS changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate. You can return and re-check the domain at any time while verification is pending.

When a custom domain is verified, Obvious uses it for the published Folio link. A Folio with the slug quarterly-update on reports.example.com is available at:

https://reports.example.com/quarterly-update

If the Folio does not have a custom slug, the custom-domain link uses its artifact ID instead, for example:

https://reports.example.com/art_abc123

Update publish settings

Want to change the access mode, PIN, or slug without publishing a new version? Click the settings icon (gear) in the toolbar. Make your changes and click Update.

The published URL appears in the toolbar. Click it to copy. Share it anywhere — email, Slack, or a document. Recipients see a standalone web page that works on any device.

Remove a custom domain

Workspace administrators can remove a configured Folio custom domain from workspace settings. Before confirming removal, note that published Folios will no longer be accessible at that custom domain. If you've shared a custom-domain URL, plan to replace it wherever your viewers use it before removing the domain.

Unpublish a folio

Open the version selector dropdown in the toolbar. Hover over the version you want to remove and click the trash icon. Confirm the deletion.

The link stops working immediately. Your folio content in Obvious is unaffected — only the published version is removed.

Save as PDF

You can export any folio to a PDF file directly from the folio artifact.

  1. Open the folio you want to export.

  2. Click the Save as PDF button in the toolbar — or open the artifact menu and select Save as PDF.

  3. Obvious generates the PDF from the live folio content. A download starts automatically when it's ready.

The exported PDF preserves the visual layout of your folio as rendered in the browser.

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