Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a fine tool for composing documents online. The advantages of using Google Docs & Spreadsheets is conversation for another day, but I will tell you this - how you can compose and publish your blog posts from Google Docs & Spreadsheets to Blogger beta. So the obvious question is why would you want to compose your posts in GD&S rather than using the built-in editor provided by Blogger beta?
- Auto save - You will not lose your post if you inadvertently close the tab/browser. GD&S constantly auto saves your document at regular intervals.
- Spell checking - The Blogger beta post editor provides no means to spell check your posts.
- More control - GD&S provides advanced options when inserting rich elements like images, links, and tables into your posts.
- Interface - The editing interface of GD&S is more akin to a full featured document editor.
Although GD&S does not support publishing to Blogger beta directly, I have successfully been able to configure GD&S to publish to Blogger beta. GD&S help center provides documentation on how to publish your documents on any blog, but these will generally not work for Blogger beta. To publish to Blogger beta using GD&S:
- Click on "Settings" in the upper right corner of your GD&S home page.
- In the "Documents" tab, select "edit info" in the "Blog settings" section.
- In the "Blog Site Settings" dialog,
- Choose My own server / custom
- API: Blogger API
- URL: http://beta.blogger.com/api
- Enter your user name and password
- (Optional) Enter your Blog ID/Title
- If you host multiple blogs on Blogger beta, I strongly recommend entering the Blog ID/Title to ensure that your posts are published to the desired blog.
- Select any desired options
You are done!
Full Disclosure: Tecnirvana runs on Blogger beta. This post was published using Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
Update: I have discovered that publishing from GD&S does not provide a title to your post. This means that you will not get a permalink to your post. I have edited this post in Blogger beta editor to give it a title.
Tags: google, google docs, blogger beta
15 comments:
Posting to Blogger Beta works fine (well sort of) now. Although a GD&S header looks OK, you are write that it doesn't generate the permalink. I've had to do the same as you and re-edit the post. Sort of defeats the purpose.
Anyhow, my first posting is http://bloggershepherd.blogspot.com/2006/11/its-not-that-dog-sings-well-its-that.html
@Roger: I completely agree with you. This completely defeats the purpose. I have reported it in the the Google Docs & Spreadsheets discussion group. I am hoping they (Blogger folks, or GD&S folks) will get it resolved one way or another.
Abishek, I still can't publish to my Blogger Beta blog from Google. I have followed your instructions to the letter, but when I publish, or try to, it says:
There was an expected problem (Connection reset)
Any idea?
InGinouity
@InGinouity: I am not sure why this is not working for you. I was suspecting that a change from the Blogger beta feature completion milestone may have broken this functionality, but I tried publishing a new post with the same settings as I have mentioned in the tutorial and everything worked as expected.
I have tested Windows Live Writer and that has worked beautifully as well. Can you give that a try and let me know if it works for you? If that does not work either, I suspect that this is a problem in the way the blog is configured.
Thank you, thank you, thank you...I don't know much about all this stuff, but I was able to get my GD&S spreadsheet to finally post on my blog: warhorsechaplain.blogspot.com
Thank you for the help.
Help! It was there, and now it's not...I didn't change anything...there's now just a blank spot where the spreadsheet appeared the first time...does it have to refresh or something?
One more thing...it appears that if I hit the little "tool" icon to edit the "Page Element," change nothing, then click "Save Changes," I at least get a box for the spreadsheet...but now the spreadsheet itself is not appearing...can you ehlp with this or should I be writing in a different group? Thank you.
test
Hi - silly question probably; I followed the instructions and ran 'text' and got the confirmation that everything is ready to go. Now how do I post a spreadsheet to my blog? I don't see any button or link that does that with in GD&S ... or does it only do docs?
@Anonymous: Unfortunately, GD&S does not provide an option to publish a spreadsheet to your blog. You can publish the spreadsheet to the web and link it from your blog.
Thanks for the Tip! This has been bugging me for a little while, and I was really glad to be able to fix it.
Your directions where right on and it worked like a Charm. Thanks again Abhishekg!
Mike Scott
The Bit Bucket
When Getting New Features Means that Old Features don't work anymore
Thanks for this solution. Now if I could get the layout to work.
of what use is this hack if we cant get title on post?
It's kinda ironic how Blogger, a product of Google, supports the least features of Google Docs and Spreadsheets. :(
I write my posts offline (it's a fiction blog) in Openoffice and it's hard to copy and paste the post without it getting the formatting in OO, so I use Google Docs. It's not hard going back and putting the title back in, actually, since once you're logged onto Docs you're logged into Blogger, so it isn't that painful. Thanks for the hack, though, it's helpful.
Hi Abhishek :),
Thanks a lot. I was stumped by this for quite some time :)
btw, is there any update about showing the title of a Google D & S doc in blogger yet?
Thanks again,
Rajiv
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