Collaboration components for sharing content from electronic documents

A method of operating a computing device comprising:

• opening an electronic document in a user interface to a productivity application;
• in the productivity application, receiving input via the user interface comprising a selection of text from the electronic document, and further comprising an indication to share the text with users in other productivity applications;
• in the productivity application, sharing the text with the users other instances of a collaboration component hosted by the other productivity applications, wherein the collaboration component comprises a distributed data structure that stores state information about the text, and further comprises application logic for managing the state information to reflect changes made to the text in a context of each of the other productivity applications, wherein the context of at least one application of the other productivity applications differs relative to that of the productivity application, and wherein the one application comprises a different type of application than the productivity application;
• in the productivity application, receiving the changes from an instance of the collaboration component hosted in the productivity application, wherein the changes include a change made to the text in the context of the one application and communicated to the instance of the collaboration component via an update to the state information by one instance of the collaboration component in the context of the one application;
• and
• in the productivity application, displaying the changes in the user interface to the productivity application.

One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media having program instructions stored thereon that, when executed by one or more processors, direct a computing apparatus to at least:

• display an electronic document in a user interface to the productivity application;
• receive input via the user interface comprising a selection of text from the electronic document, and further comprising an indication to share the text with other users in other productivity applications;
• and
• share the text with the users via other instances of a collaboration component hosted by the other productivity applications, wherein the collaboration component comprises a distributed data structure that stores state information about the text, and further comprises application logic for managing the state information to reflect changes made to the text by the one or more users in a context of each of the other productivity applications, wherein the context of at least one application of the other productivity applications differs relative to that of the productivity application, and wherein the one application comprises a different type of application than the productivity application.