An unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move your operating system online since 2005. Not affiliated with Google.

Send your tips to gostips@gmail.com.

February 28, 2015

Google Docs Viewer Page, No Longer Available

Google had a page that allowed you to quickly view documents online right from your browser. The Google Docs Viewer page was available at docs.google.com/viewer and drive.google.com/viewer. You could enter a document URL and Google generated a link to view it. This worked for a lot of file types: Microsoft Office files, PDFs, PostScript files and more.


While the page is no longer available as it redirects to Google Docs/Drive, you can still use the Google Docs Viewer. Paste this URL in a new tab:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=

and then paste the address of the document you want to view online. Here's an example:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://research.google.com/archive/bigtable-osdi06.pdf

The "embedded" parameter is still available: just add &embedded=true to the URL and the viewer will use an embedded mode interface. This is useful for embedding documents (use the <iframe> tag).

{ Thanks, +Sushubh Mittal. }
Posted by at
Labels:

17 comments:

  1. JasonSeptember 2, 2015 at 2:10 PM

    Thanks - this is helpful!

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownSeptember 15, 2015 at 1:25 AM

    Thankyou so much! My old embedded view stopped working and now I know why :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownSeptember 24, 2015 at 3:14 AM

    Internal links not working in a PDF for example my table of content.

    ReplyDelete
  4. kallolSeptember 29, 2015 at 2:01 AM

    How to preserve internal links in PDF document in that case?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Coito de LlanoJanuary 26, 2016 at 10:48 AM

      Sorry.. its possible locate text using adding other parameter ?. May be possible search text in online pdf ?

      Google APP Script can help for these labour ?

      Thanks...

      Delete
  5. UnknownFebruary 14, 2016 at 11:57 PM

    i am using google api url to display my files on my website.i wanted to know whether my content is uploaded on the google server or google deploys some kind of executable to display my files

    ReplyDelete
  6. Willie FordhamMarch 14, 2016 at 1:33 AM

    My old embedded view stopped working and now I know why.Thank you for your great post.

    ReplyDelete
  7. ScrivenerApril 15, 2016 at 1:56 AM

    I get a preview of the code of my docs : is there no way to link to a traditional graphical preview of a google doc ? It loads much faster than the editor mode.

    ReplyDelete
  8. JAY PATELApril 27, 2016 at 5:17 AM

    I am getting error that Refused to display '<<--MYURL-->>' in a frame because it set 'X-Frame-Options' to 'SAMEORIGIN'. Is there any one else facing same issue.

    ReplyDelete
  9. LloydNovember 2, 2016 at 7:21 AM

    I am now getting a 204 [no content] error for all documents. Has this fully been depreciated?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tim NeeleyNovember 3, 2016 at 7:45 AM

      I am getting intermittent 204s as well. About 30% of the page loads result in a 204. Upon refresh they typically load. Very frustrating

      Delete
  10. lipikaApril 30, 2017 at 11:16 PM

    Hi,
    This is my url and its seems not working , showing error "Whoops"
    https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://preview.adviserlogic.com/ab762d17-3d2a-4ecf-95e8-684f76ecc649_lipikaPreviewtest.doc

    ReplyDelete
  11. Raj KrishnamoorthyJune 15, 2017 at 3:44 PM

    Can I use google docs viewer in commercial usage ? how much does it cost ?

    Thanks for any help

    ReplyDelete
  12. UnknownJuly 11, 2017 at 5:09 AM

    Hi
    I use the embed document plugin for my wordpress website. It used to work perfectly while embeding pdf and poweroint but its currently not loading those pages. What could be the problem? See http://www.academicscope.com/management-risk-lecture/

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownNovember 17, 2017 at 6:09 AM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  14. UnknownNovember 17, 2017 at 6:09 AM

    If you are saying build a URL every time you add a file instead of just clicking add, no, that's not that helpful. Thanks anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  15. vaiyboraNovember 26, 2017 at 7:39 AM

    Very nice post.really I apperciate your blog.Thanks for sharing.keep sharing more blogs.

    แคมฟรอก

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)