Thursday, September 24, 2009 2:44 PM
Last year, we added PDF upload and view to Google Docs, and the "View" link for PDF attachments in Gmail. We also added support for viewing PowerPoint and TIFF files in Gmail this April. Feedback on these features has been very positive - viewing files right in your browser is fast, and it keeps your downloads folder clean. Plus, it spares you the hassle of saving your files to the machine you're using, which could be a shared or public computer.Starting today, we're opening up this technology to all webmasters and blog owners with the Google Docs viewer. All you have to do is give the URL of a PDF, Powerpoint or TIFF document to us and we'll display it directly in your browser with no download required - like this. For complete documentation, and a form to generate code for embedded viewers (example below), check out our webpage.
Are you a Box.net user? You'll be happy to know you can use this service to view documents stored within your Box - just add the Google Docs Viewer OpenBox Service to your account.
Enjoy!
24 comments:
I think this is great! A preview is much quicker then loading a desktop app.
I might overlook it but i can't find the obvious button in Gview that enables me to save a given file to my online Google Docs "folder"!?
I can download the file to my computer and then upload it again to Google Docs, but a one click save would be nicer.
Great tool! No more Adobe reader required to view a PDF doc.
But how about printing a PDF? at the moment that click the print link I need to open the pdf document with a local pdf viewer.
why if im wrting a doc i can not see when A4 ends?(like ms word)
Note the Google Docs PDF Viewer is much more limited than PDF viewers like from Adobe. E.g. links in a PDF viewed in Google Docs PDF viewer are not active, which can be quite an annoyance.
The new Google Docs Viewer it's a really amazing widget expecially for Blogs like blogger! Justa a newbie note: I think it'd be much easier to upload a PDF in "Google Docs" and watch it with embedded viewer then to "be forced" to upload the same PDF as attachment in "Google Sites" to be able to watch it in the embed viewer. I mean, it'd be much more useful having only one BIG space shared between all google tools (sites, docs, blogger, code, youtube, etc ...). In that way an user would upload the file in his only one shared space and use it in all places of Google Tools.
This is fantastic. May I mention one critical piece that's missing: I want a button that will take the opened link and move it to my GoogleDocs.
Right now, if I want it in GoogleDocs, I have to download it and then re-upload it. Not a good flow.
Thanks for being so awesome. I love your products and your generosity. Keep it up. :-)
A WordPress plugin has already been developed to use this functionality in pages/posts. Updated to reflect the new published status of this feature.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-document-embedder/
Yeah Google Docs Rocks.i was using a third party applications for this.now it is from father of new technologies, Google !
Nice one!
Would be even nicer (ie userfriendly) if it would be available as toolbar link (as was for example with google notebook etc)
Printing directly from the viewer would seem more obvious as the need to have it saved locally to open in .. pdf reader before one can print.
So it could use some work but for a start it's really nice!
Cut and paste from a PDF is often used and having to open in to PDF reader to do that is frustrating. Please add cut & paste of searchable PDFs. text can be blocked but not copied.
Recently Google has announced another online tool for Web developers named Docs Viewer. Ironically named because the utility does not (yet) support viewing of MS Word (.Doc) file types. Currently supporting PowerPoint, PDF, and Tiff file types only.
My summarization is basically; this utility may allows some users access to services for displaying proprietary file types within a Web browser. But obviously not for the Web developers following universal design, Web accessibility standards and/or guidelines. Some of the problems I initially see are that Google is using framed Web window technology, often frowned upon for it's inaccessibility. The tool requires Javascript and lacks a no-script alternative. Fact is basic accessibility techniques like input form fields lack HTML label tags for even basic accessibility. While this tool may may provide some users a solution for viewing proprietary file types it clearly lacks any accessibility consideration. Shameful and typical developers think of accessibility as an afterthought.
I love the new option to now publish a pdf using a url. As a teacher, this is fantastic for allowing my students online access to organizers and other documents that are graphic heavy.
But, why is there no option to download or print if one does not have a google account (as many of my student's don't).
This seems ridiculous...what is it accomplishing?
Hello
Is it possible to configure he Viewer, displaying first full page versus 2 thumb per page ??
Thanks
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prac
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As previously stated, I really like the ability to preview a document without having to download it. This would be an absolutely fabulous tool if it had a "save as Google Doc" button added! Great work Google!
I heartily agree with Bill. I need a way to keep the PDF without having to save it to the desktop and then reupload it to Docs. Please add a button. (This seems like a simple fix; perhaps it's not.)
Google, you do great work. The PDF viewer is wonderful and so is the Docs suite.
Can you also provide DjVu file format support?
Hi Google - It looks like I have the option to embed a minimal version of the Docs reader in my pages or any kind of frame, but any attempt to display the full Viewer in a frame seems to fail. Sorry, but (1.) the usability of the full version (embedded=false) is far better, BUT (2.) as a webmaster, I need the ability to frame your viewer such that my own common scripting is loaded at top, and my analytics are loaded at bottom.
Is there any option to display the FULL version of Viewer when embedded=true?
Thanks in advance.
I see no discussion here about why the viewer fails to load on IE7/8 when used on any sites I try. Sometimes only the document fails to load - a broken image appears in its place - and other times the whole viewer itself appears to hang and then it prompt for Google login. This for files that are not on Google docs at all.
The issue seems to be cookie handling in IE7/8. It requires each IE viewer to add google.com to allowed cookies, or to override default cookie handling. It's unreasonable to rely on web site visitors to fuss with Internet Options to use this feature.
Granted, it works like a champ in Firefox. I support the IE Ban but it hasn't gone into effect yet ;)
Is there even a place to file a "bug report" rather than post a blog comment?
Anyone know how to use a file that's stored on a 'google site' file repository? Would be great to add a 'view' link to a google site that would allow the user to view the file vs download, but the viewer app doesn't accept the link that google sites provides.
I am having a terrible experience with the pdf previewer. A lot of sites are using it now and I'd say close to 1/2 the time all I get is the "sorry we were unable to retrieve teh document for viewing" error. Are others having this problem? I'm using the latest version of Firefox but it seems to be the same in IE when I switch to that.
Thanks for the update - would be possible to add a function "open from URL" to Google Docs itself?
I'd like to open online documents from within GoogleDocs even if the web master has not added that capability. Manipulating the gview-URL works, but is cumbersome,-)
I'd like to know of there is a way to prevent the document from downloading and printing. It should only be available for viewing. Right now, you can download it, print it and save the page you are viewing it as an image. Is there an API or some url parameters which would prevent these actions from happening.
-thanks
kabir...
I've been using the view nearly exclusively for a long time. It's a great addition to Google docs. However it really needs the addition of a "save to google docs" button. Please consider adding this feature. Thanks.
Is there a way to attache a pdf file to a google doc?
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