Read any Web Document Directly in Google Docs – Similar to Gmail

Open as Google Document Gmail has this nice feature where you can open PDF files and Office documents directly in your Google Docs account bypassing the need of any desktop software like Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Office.

If you find this Gmail feature handy, you’ll probably also enjoy using the "Send to Google Docs" extension for Firefox.

Send to Google DocsThis extension (download link) lets you read online documents directly in your Google Docs account with a simple right click (see screenshot).

It works with popular file formats like PDF, Excel, Word, PowerPoint and all Open Document formats.  "Send to Docs" can also import HTML web pages in Google Docs provided they have the right extension.

You right click any document link on the web, choose "Send to Google Docs" from the context menu and the file will immediately open as a Google Document. The file also gets saved permanently in your Google Docs account.

I’ll distribute this add-on directly from the Firefox official site once it gets approved by the Mozilla team. Similar ‘direct web uploaders’ already exist for Scribd and Flickr.

Find this article at: http://labnol.org/?p=4275

Reader Comments

That’s a nice extension Amit.

I was wondering if there’s such an offline tool which will help open documents on your PC directly in your browser in Google Docs in a similar fashion. This could come in handy for opening documents which aren’t in the .docx format in Vista. It will save the time taken to convert it or manually upload it to an online viewer.

I wouldn’t advertise that it can open “any” web document, b/c GDocs does not support docx yet.

the google toolbar allready provides some opening documents, but not for pdf or web pages. good job Amit.

I consider myself a pretty savvy Firefox user, but for some reason, I can’t figure out how to install this… Do I choose to “save as” [and if so, where do I put it] or “open with” [if so, with what? Firefox?]?

Thanks, sorry to be a little slow…

Didnt work for me. I have firefox of course. But cliking on the link above, FF did not know how to open it; and neither do I. And my office, customers, and I are on the 2007 standard now; which Gdocs does not support. Anyone know how to run this?

Does it allow you to select which google docs account it goes to?

I have the free docs setup plus google sites.

I may also want to upload to a docs site others have that I have write access enabled on.

Great idea, but I downloaded the app and my Vista computer doesn’t know what to do with a .xpi file. Any ideas?

Thanks!

If you trouble installing the Firefox XPI file on your computer, try these steps:

Step 1. Right click and download this file to your desktop link

Step 2. Open a new tab in Firefox and drop-n-drop this xpi file from the desktop onto the new tab.

Thanks, Amit – that worked! Great script – very useful.

Hi love this extension, I hate having to downloading PDFs from the web.

It’s nice feature indeed. I purchased new Laptop and does’t want to shell out money for MC Office for opening could of documents in a month. This tool can help all those folks like me, who can save money on MS Office. I am assuming that this software does’t look for MS license before opening. Pls correct me if i am wrong. Thanks. Sachin

Very productive….saves a lot of time. Thanks

Hey…not working with .pdf. Any clue what’s happening? Neither I am getting ‘Open in Google Docs’ default link besides a .pdf file (though in context menu, I see the link due to add-on).

for those having trouble installing the addon.

1. download the file above (or right-click save link as…)

2. open firefox

3. select File > Open File

4. search for the downloaded file.

it should then pop up with the install addon dialogue box and it should be all good then.

cheers,
will

I have intalled it using the classical procedure and the explained ones but when I use it (I have tried several links with several files .pdf, .doc, etc.), nothing happens. Any ideas?

Great extension, but I had 2 problems with it (using Firefox 3.01):
1) It doesn’t play nice with Gears, I had to disable the gears extension to get it to work – with gears enabled, it simply opens a new firefox window with my current google docs list view, no sign of the new document
2) it always opens the imported document in a new window, instead of following the “open in new tab” directive in firefox tab options

Thanks again for the great extension!

I wonder if you can change openning mode to the new tab on the same window instead of openning another window…. That will be better.

Does this work with Google Desktop search results of doc files on your hard drive?

I like this add on but now it doesn’t work.
When i try to send a document to google docs it opens a new window with an uRL like this
link
and all i see is
Not Found. Error 404

It doesn’t matter if it is a dic, pdf, ppt or any opther format file. It always does the same.
¿Why?

Bu the way. Could you improve this addon to let me choose to open a new tab instead of a new window
Thanks

I can’t get it to work. I right-click select “Send to Google Docs”, but nothing happens…

I tried using this, but I get a 404 error. I was trying to open a course from my e-college links, which requires Auth (I was logged in). I’m not sure if that’s the problem, or if it is part of the wider problem that people are expressing here.

I have installed in Firefox 3.0.5 on Mac OS X 10.5.6 and it works as far as the side-bar view is concerned but I do not have the “Send to Google Docs” option in the right-click context menu.
Any ideas how to get it, as this is the reason I installed this extension. It would be brilliant if it worked :-)

Wanted to use this but it doesn’t work with Google Apps.
When you try to send a file to Google Docs it takes you to the non-Apps login when we need to log in via the Apps Docs interface.

The extension is promising but does not work for me in Firefox 3.0.5

doesn’t work for me with firefox 3.05 – get a 404 when trying to access a publicly accessible url.
URL accessible when clicked on, just not when “send to google docs”. Removing extension.

great addon! but it should open in a new tab instead of opening a new window! please fix this, because then your addon is really powerful and useful!

thanks

awesome idea, but still not working with Firefox 3.0.5

can you make this for google chrome also?

Great plugin, but I think it has a problem with filenames containing spaces. Documents with spaces in their names give an error when google tries to open them. If you replace the spaces with %20, they open fine.


Questions & Answers