28 May 2010

How to exploit Google docs

Now that google has removed the restriction on its documents, it is time for us to start exploiting it.

No need to upload your pictures in some free image webhosting websites where you wont be having the 100% surity of whether it might come up all time or you'l see a "bandwidth exceeded" message. Upload it to your own google account and with some tweak, we can link it directly in the webpage. You can do the same with Picasa, but you will have to create an album every time and it becomes kind of annoying to maintain it.

Same goes with the flash presentations as well. No need to host it to any unreliable free websites. Upload it to your own google document. Plus if you want any referring files you can very well upload it to Google Docs. Yes, there is a limit on the size per account but still 7+ GB will become handy for small and medium bloggers.

Ok, the steps are very very simple.
1. Login to http://docs.google.com. Sign in with your google id and password.
2. Click on upload from the left top and select "any" file type you want only restriction is it cannot exceed 100 MB. Do not forget to uncheck "Convert documents, presentations, and spreadsheets to the corresponding Google Docs formats" if you feel you dont want Google mess up your documents.
3. After you upload the file, select the file and click on Share and select "Get the link to share". You should be getting a link in a text bar as shown below
4. To append the file in your page all you got to do is add this to the url &export=open&type=.swf

This way you can directly embed your flash or jpg or png directly in your pages (the type=.xxx will vary depending on the file you've uploaded). If you want to give a direct download link append this command at the end &export=download&confirm=no_antivirus

The last one &confirm=no_antivirus can be given to files of .exe and .zip extensions.

Hope this helped. A sample flash file embedded from google doc can be found here.

Cheers!!
Braga.

6 comments:

J Story said...

Great tip!

BragBoy said...

@JStory: Happy to see its useful!

Richard said...

You should note that there are clauses in the ToS that may affect your use of this:

4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Google when you stop using the Services.

4.5 You acknowledge and agree that while Google may not currently have set a fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through the Services or on the amount of storage space used for the provision of any Service, such fixed upper limits may be set by Google at any time, at Google’s discretion.

"Your storage quota includes plenty of bandwidth for ordinary use. If there's excessive bandwidth use, we may limit your access for a period of time. "

BragBoy said...

#Devmentia: Thanks for pointing them out! But with Google's reputation, I dont think none of them will happen. Plus its highly important for any company these days to write their T&C in order to avoid legal issues later.

maddy said...

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BragBoy said...

@maddy: Thanks for checking out and you're most welcome!