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embedding a google document

  1. all52cards
    Member

    Sorry, this has been asked many times here, but I'm so confused, nothing seems to work.

    http://en.support.wordpress.com/shortcodes/ tells me:

    [googleapps] embeds a document from Google Docs. » Full instructions

    I of course looked up the Full instructions, but when I get to the "And then copy/paste the iframe code into your blog:" part, the Google page does not give me the iframe link (did google change this?). If I try to create an iframe link myself like it is displayed on the instructions page, my preview only shows a (non-clickable) direct link.

    Neither do I find any clear documentation on how the [googleapps] shortcode is supposed to work.

    Does anyone have a working example for a free wordpress.com account?

    The blog I need help with is all52cards.wordpress.com.

  2. designsimply
    Staff

    There are some examples here, does this page help you? http://en.support.wordpress.com/google-docs/

  3. mmadfan
    Member

    Very oddly, and I did not know this until after I used a work-around to get the google doc to embed, you can (according to an email I rec'd from a WordPress.com Happiness person) actually put the iframe in your html & wp.com converts it. Odd, I know. I've not done this because I've had it drilled into me that iframes don't work on wp.com & I only had the one occasion to embed a doc (a spreadsheet, actually).

    One thing to note: the instructions on the wp.com page are incorrect. You do not have to set your doc to "public" to have this work. Google's own documentation states that the doc can be set to private and still be embedded by you -- Google creates a kind of "shadow doc" with its own url when you embed it, so the original doc is still private. My doc is private and it shows up fine on my wp.com blog.

    I'll try to find the code I used and post it here as an example for you.

  4. mmadfan
    Member

    Here's an example of the code. I've replaced the specific doc code with a placeholder:<div style="text-align: center;">[googleapps=https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=LONG MULTI-LETTER KEY PROVIDED BY GOOGLE IN THE IFRAME CODE;output=html&widget=true]</div>

    Sorry 'bout the caps, but it was the only way I could think of to distinguish the code that I grabbed from within the google iframe code.

    I hope this is helpful.

    Oh, and here's the relevant info about privacy settings:

    Here's their documentation:
    http://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=183965&hl=en_US

    "When you publish a doc, Google Docs creates a separate, lightweight webpage
    where anyone with the link can view the contents of your document. Because the
    published version of a doc is its own webpage with its own URL, that version
    isn’t affected by the visibility option you choose for your document.

    "This means that a doc could be both Private and published to the web."

  5. mmadfan
    Member

    Sorry 'bout the funky formatting -- I should proofread when I cut & paste!

  6. mmadfan
    Member

    BTW, if you're having trouble finding the iframe, be sure that you are clicking on the drop down in the bottom half of the "publish" pop-up that appears in google apps. You have to say that you want to publish it (start publishing, I think it's called), and then in the lower half, of the box, you will see a dropdown menu with many selections. The default is webpage, but you want to pick the one that says "html to embed in page." That will put the iframe info in the text box at the bottom.

    You can use the "webpage" info provided by cutting and pasting that into a google apps wp.com shortcode -- like in my example -- and it is what you will see as the html provided in the "html to embed" iframe code.

  7. all52cards
    Member

    Thanks for the info, especially the [googleapps] code example! It seems that 'old style' documents at docs.google.com get another dialog without the iframe code to copy from. A 'new style' document gives me the expected code to embed an iframe.

    I'll put 'resolved' on this topic, and maybe it will be useful for newbies like me in the future.

  8. mmadfan
    Member

    You're welcome! Glad I could help!

  9. thruthenarrowgate
    Member

    I posted a spreadsheet earlier this week from google.docs and it worked great for a few days and then when I tried to update, it disappeared and I can't seem to get it to appear in my post again! I copied the "html to embed in a page" code and wordpress is converting it to this shortcode (minus my actual key)

    [googleapps domain="docs" dir="spreadsheet/pub" query="hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=THIS IS WHERE MY KEY WAS, LOTS OF LETTERS/NUMBERS;output=html&widget=true" width="500" height="300" /]

    but either a link to the spreadsheet appears, or the code itself, or nothing at all, depending on how/where I post the code.

    If "Iframe's" are converted by wp.com and I posted it before, why won't it work now???

    frustrated :(

  10. mmadfan
    Member

    Can you provide a link to the post in question, please?

  11. raincoaster
    Member

    Iframes are tricky. The first time you post them, they work. Unfortunately, both they and the shortcodes have a habit of going BLIP the second time you edit the post. Sometimes you have to go and re-generate the code.

  12. thruthenarrowgate
    Member

    @raincoaster: I "stopped publishing" on google docs and then started publishing once more and have re-generated more times in the last 3hrs than I care to count! I read where "Iframes" weren't allowed, but isn't the code conversion a new solution to an old problem? I'm assuming this is a new fix, maybe I'm wrong and they are still stripping them, even when converted?

  13. raincoaster
    Member

    Wait...staff seem to be tinkering on themes. Try putting it in the other editor: HTML if you've been using Visual, or vice versa. When they're working on themes, that sometimes works.

  14. thruthenarrowgate
    Member

    I've tried both editors, I've even added it as a media, URL, etc, just because I was desperately trying to make something work! I am fixing to go live w/ my page, but don't want to count on something to be there and function and then it suddenly disappear when I want subscribers to use my spreadsheet! Do you know of any other bugs that could be temporarily bringing this down, or is this a constant problem and maybe I should look elsewhere to embed a spreadsheet?

  15. mmadfan
    Member

    Thanks for the tip, @rain!

  16. stpaulsepiscopal
    Member

    I am having the same issues as others who have posted about this. I am trying to embed a Google Form into a post to send out.

    I have made sure the form is public and published.

    I have copied the iframe code provided by Google (to embed the form) into HTML editor: nothing shows up. I have deleted "spreadsheet" from the code as suggested by another member, with no results. Ditto for changing frame size.

    I have also tried copying the code into Visual editor; either nothing shows up OR the code shows up. No page.

    I have tried this using Google Chrome, Firefox, and IE.

    The biggest mystery is that, when my form was new yesterday, I somehow got it to show up once in a post draft. However, I have since edited both the post and the form, and now I've spent over an hour trying to recreate the experience, to no avail. I wish I knew what I did right yesterday, but if memory serves correctly, I just followed the steps and it showed up that first time. I've tried reading all related forums but have not found a solution. It seems I'm not alone with this issue.

    Please help.

  17. thruthenarrowgate
    Member

    @:stpaulsepiscopal

    Please read my post from 8/15 hopefully it will help you. I resolved my issue (explained in the linked forum)

    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/trouble-w-iframe-conversion-google-doc-not-showing-up#post-672005

  18. stpaulsepiscopal
    Member

    Yessss!

    So, I had to do 2 things to make this work:

    1. change domain="docs" to domain="spreadsheets"

    2. delete "spreadsheets" from dir="spreadsheets/embeddedform" so that it just read dir ="embeddedform"

    WordPress was setting the wrong domain and dir. Took a little bit more figuring, but THANK YOU, thruthenarrowgate, for redirecting me to the end of that forum, which I read yesterday but I guess not the final post! You have put a silver lining on my day!

  19. stpaulsepiscopal
    Member

    Yessss!

    So, I had to do 2 things to make this work:

    1. change domain="docs" to domain="spreadsheets"

    2. delete "spreadsheets" from dir="spreadsheets/embeddedform" so that it just read dir ="embeddedform"

    WordPress was setting the wrong domain and dir. Took a little bit more figuring, but THANK YOU, thruthenarrowgate, for redirecting me to the end of that forum, which I read yesterday but I guess not the final post! You have put a silver lining on my day!

  20. mmadfan
    Member

    IMHO, the wordpress.com support page for the google apps shortcodes needs some updating and improving. However, given all that they do here at wordpress, I'm not going to carp too much about slightly confusing directions or outdated information on a single page about google apps, which is a lovely option to be able to use, but not a "core" blogging app, IMO.

    And I reiterate: the original spreadsheet or doc can be marked private in google apps and still appear just fine on the blog page/post to visitors. Google creates a separate version of the document to be displayed in html. My spreadsheet is still marked "private," and all the world can see it on my blog page.

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