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ilembitov

Member

Registered: 2008-10-07

Posts: 124

Using Google Docs to remotely convert documents.

Damn, this is just too cool.

GDD is a Python script that downloads all your Google Docs documents. What's even cooler is the fact that one can specify the conversion format. Which means, doc/docx/odt/rtf will be converted to HTML, xls/xlsx/ods will be converted to CSV (I don't really use spreadsheets, so I don't care) and PPT/PPTX/ODP will be converted to PNG (I hate effects anyways). I have tested it already, and the doc->html conversion works much better than OpenOffice's export functionality! Which means, you don't have to keep any office suite on your box!

I just found this thing and wanted to spread the word, so I didn't investigate it in further details. I mean, there are several things I'd like to figure out:

1) Can Google Docs be used to convert a local file that way? E.g., if I have an HTML file, can I get a .DOC out of Google Docs without running it in a browser?
2) Consequently, can mutt be scripted to perform that kind of conversion on every document attachment and store it with the original e-mail? I guess, one could get Gmail to send all the documents to Google Docs automatically (I think so), but that will end up as a mess.

And I'd probably rewrite the script in shell - just for fun (it could be a nice challenge, since I am currently learning shell scripting).

So, why would one need such a thing? Well, me personally, I only write documents. They are usually not very big, but they need to be done quickly. So, I prefer a text editor to a word processor. Using discount, the awesome Markdown interpreter with lots of extensions, I can get all the formatting features (tables, images, footnotes) I could possibly need from a word processor. However, I can't send documents in HTML, so it would be nice to convert those to DOC (yeah, you can just change the extension and it would work in Word anyways, but still). Finally, from time to time I do get to read spreadsheets or presentations (but I don't have to make them myself), so this functionality is also nice. I am a total geek when it comes to being lightweight, so I was really intrigued to learn about this thing.

alexj

Member

From: Canary Islands

Registered: 2010-04-22

Posts: 23

Re: Using Google Docs to remotely convert documents.

Thanks

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Pank

Member

From: IT

Registered: 2009-06-13

Posts: 371

Re: Using Google Docs to remotely convert documents.

1) Can Google Docs be used to convert a local file that way? E.g., if I have an HTML file, can I get a .DOC out of Google Docs without running it in a browser?

Did you find a solution to this? Using gdd I guess one would need to do something like upload input, specify wished format, download output, remove input. Skimming through the readme, gdd did not seem to supported upload, though.

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eschew

Member

Registered: 2009-10-13

Posts: 13

Re: Using Google Docs to remotely convert documents.

1) Can Google Docs be used to convert a local file that way? E.g., if I have an HTML file, can I get a .DOC out of Google Docs without running it in a browser?

Did you find a solution to this? Using gdd I guess one would need to do something like upload input, specify wished format, download output, remove input. Skimming through the readme, gdd did not seem to supported upload, though.

I _think_ this is possible using googlecl (http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/). You can upload the HTML file, then download the DOC pretty easily, or so it seems. Check out some googlecl examples to see what I mean (http://code.google.com/p/googlecl/wiki/ExampleScripts). googlecl is in the AUR, hope this helps.

bananaoomarang

Member

Registered: 2009-10-29

Posts: 180

Re: Using Google Docs to remotely convert documents.

hey, that's really cool!! :):):)

Last edited by bananaoomarang (2010-06-30 13:35:39)

Stalafin

Member

From: Berlin, Germany

Registered: 2007-10-26

Posts: 617

Re: Using Google Docs to remotely convert documents.

So, I am curious - is there a way to synchronize your Google docs? Something similar to, say, mutt and offlineimap for emails?

Would be great to be able to download the stuff, edit docs on your computer, then upload all of it.