The present application relates to the field of communications, and provides a transmission method and apparatus. The method includes a network side device determines a number of Demodulation Reference Signal (DMRS) port groups N occupied by downlink transmission data sent to a terminal, N being greater than or equal to 1; the network side device determines, according to the number of the DMRS port groups occupied by the downlink transmission data, a code word transmission mode corresponding to the downlink transmission data; and the network side device performs data processing on the downlink transmission data according to the code word transmission mode, and transmits the processed downlink transmission data by means of transmission points corresponding to the N DMRS port groups.