• Overview
  A tool for journalists, a
  document catalog, both.
• Search
  Our catalog has more than
  one million public documents.
• Open Source
  Our work is open source.
  Contribute your ideas.
• Get Help
  Learn about DocumentCloud's
  advanced features and API.
• Who We Are
  Meet the people
  making this happen.

We're here to help you with DocumentCloud accounts or questions about the service. There are several ways to get in touch with us; check the section below that best fits what you need.

Getting a DocumentCloud account

Generally, DocumentCloud accounts are available to those who report on primary source documents. User accounts are organization-based, meaning that each user is connected to an overall organization account.

There are several ways to get started with a DocumentCloud account:

If you belong to a news organization, first check whether it's already a DocumentCloud contributor. If so, a person at your site with administrative privileges on DocumentCloud can create an account for you. If you don't know who that is, we can help. Email support@documentcloud.org.

If your organization is not yet a DocumentCloud contributor, you can apply for an organization account. You will be asked to have an editor or manager grant permission to add your newsroom to our public list of document contributors; confirm that they understand you'll be contributing documents to a public catalog; and confirm you have read and agree to our Terms of Service. Once we receive this from your editor, expect to be up and running within a few days.

At its discretion, DocumentCloud gives accounts to those who do document-based investigative reporting but are not employees of a news organization. Examples include freelancers on a specific assignment or educational uses. Requests are evaluated on a case-by-case basis. In general, we do not provide accounts until the website that will host the documents is live or can be previewed. When you apply, we'll ask you to show us some of your reporting and tell us about the kind of documents you work with.

In addition, we are able to provide demo accounts to those who wish to evaluate the service but not publish documents. Contact us to learn more.

Technical Support

You'll find the answers to most of your DocumentCloud questions in our Help documents, such as how to publish documents and how to collaborate.

If you can't find the answer there, feel free to email us at support@documentcloud.org.

If you need help implementing our software components (e.g., Jammit, CloudCrowd, Underscore.js, Backbone.js, Docsplit, or Pixel Ping) please file an issue directly on Github.

Feature Requests and Bug Reports

We welcome DocumentCloud bug reports and feature requests at UserVoice.

General Questions

For non-technical questions or general help, please email info@documentcloud.org.