Get Google Document as HTML - google-apps-script

Question

I had a wild idea that I could build a website blog for an unsophisticated user friend using Google Drive Documents to back it. I was able to create a contentService that compiles a list of documents. However, I can't see a way to convert the document to HTML. I know that Google can render documents in a web page, so I wondered if it was possible to get a rendered version for use in my content service.
Is this possible?

Answer 1

You can try this code :
function getGoogleDocumentAsHTML(){
var id = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getId() ;
var forDriveScope = DriveApp.getStorageUsed(); //needed to get Drive Scope requested
var url = "https://docs.google.com/feeds/download/documents/export/Export?id="+id+"&exportFormat=html";
var param = {
method : "get",
headers : {"Authorization": "Bearer " + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken()},
muteHttpExceptions:true,
};
var html = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url,param).getContentText();
Logger.log(html);
}

Answer 2

Node.js Solution
Using the Google APIs Node.js Client
Here's how you can get a google doc as html using google drive's node.js client library.
// import googleapis npm package
var google = require('googleapis');
// variables
var fileId = '<google drive doc file id>',
accessToken = '<oauth access token>';
// oauth setup
var OAuth2 = google.auth.OAuth2,
OAuth2Client = new OAuth2();
// set oauth credentials
OAuth2Client.setCredentials({access_token: accessToken});
// google drive setup
var drive = google.drive({version: 'v3', auth: OAuth2Client});
// download file as text/html
var buffers = [];
drive.files.export(
{
fileId: fileId,
mimeType: 'text/html'
}
)
.on('error', function(err) {
// handle error
})
.on('data', function(data) {
buffers.push(data); // data is a buffer
})
.on('end', function() {
var buffer = Buffer.concat(buffers),
googleDocAsHtml = buffer.toString();
console.log(googleDocAsHtml);
});
Take a look at the Google Drive V3 download docs for more languages and options.

Answer 3

Google docs currently has a function to do this.
Just download to zip(.html) and you can have a zip archive with html & image (if inserted)
I know this is not solution based on code, but its working :)

Answer 4

There is no direct method in GAS to get an HTML version of a doc and this is quite an old enhancement request but the workaround described originally by Henrique Abreu works pretty well, I use it all the time...
The only annoying thing in the authorization process that needs to be called from the script editor which makes it uneasy to use in a shared application (with "script unable" users) but this only happens once ;).
There is also a Library created by Romain Vialard that makes things (a bit) easier... and adds a few other interesting functions.

Answer 5

Here is a little snipped for the new version of goole AOuth following the idea posted by Enrique:
function exportAsHTML(){
var forDriveScope = DriveApp.getStorageUsed(); //needed to get Drive Scope requested
var docID = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getId();
var url = "https://docs.google.com/feeds/download/documents/export/Export?id="+docID+"&exportFormat=html";
var param = {
method : "get",
headers : {"Authorization": "Bearer " + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken()},
muteHttpExceptions:true,
};
var html = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url,param).getContentText();
return html;
}
and then use the usual mailApp:
function mailer(){
var docbody = exportAsHTML();
MailApp.sendEmail({
to: "email#mail.com",
subject: "document emailer",
htmlBody: docbody });
}
Hope the new workaround helps
JD

Answer 6

You may use the solution here
/**
* Converts a file to HTML. The Advanced Drive service must be enabled to use
* this function.
*/
function convertToHtml(fileId) {
var file = Drive.Files.get(fileId);
var htmlExportLink = file.exportLinks['text/html'];
if (!htmlExportLink) {
throw 'File cannot be converted to HTML.';
}
var oAuthToken = ScriptApp.getOAuthToken();
var response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(htmlExportLink, {
headers:{
'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + oAuthToken
},
muteHttpExceptions: true
});
if (!response.getResponseCode() == 200) {
throw 'Error converting to HTML: ' + response.getContentText();
}
return response.getContentText();
}
Pass as fileId, the id of the google doc and to enable advanced drive services follow the instructions here.

Answer 7

I've had this problem as well. The HTML that the Document HTML Export spits out is really ugly, so this was my solution:
/**
* Takes in a Google Doc ID, gets that doc in HTML format, cleans up the markup, and returns the resulting HTML string.
*
* #param {string} the id of the google doc
* #param {boolean} [useCaching] enable or disable caching. default true.
* #return {string} the doc's body in html format
*/
function getContent(id, useCaching) {
if (!id) {
throw "Please call this API with a valid Google Doc ID";
}
if (useCaching == null) {
useCaching = true;
}
if (typeof useCaching != "boolean") {
throw "If you're going to specify useCaching, it must be boolean.";
}
var cache = CacheService.getScriptCache();
var cached = cache.get(id); // see if we have a cached version of our parsed html
if (cached && useCaching) {
var html = cached;
Logger.log("Pulling doc html from cache...");
} else {
Logger.log("Grabbing and parsing fresh html from the doc...");
try {
var doc = DriveApp.getFileById(id);
} catch (err) {
throw "Please call this API with a valid Google Doc ID. " + err.message;
}
var docName = doc.getName();
var forDriveScope = DriveApp.getStorageUsed(); // needed to get Drive Scope requested in ScriptApp.getOAuthToken();
var url = "https://docs.google.com/feeds/download/documents/export/Export?id=" + id + "&exportFormat=html";
var param = {
method: "get",
headers: {"Authorization": "Bearer " + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken()},
muteHttpExceptions:true,
};
var html = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, param).getContentText();
// nuke the whole head section, including the stylesheet and meta tag
html = html.replace(/<head>.*<\/head>/, '');
// remove almost all html attributes
html = html.replace(/ (id|class|style|start|colspan|rowspan)="[^"]*"/g, '');
// remove all of the spans, as well as the outer html and body
html = html.replace(/<(span|\/span|body|\/body|html|\/html)>/g, '');
// clearly the superior way of denoting line breaks
html = html.replace(/<br>/g, '<br />');
cache.put(id, html, 900) // cache doc contents for 15 minutes, in case we get a lot of requests
}
Logger.log(html);
return html;
}
https://gist.github.com/leoherzog/cc229d14a89e6327336177bb07ac2980

Answer 8

Perhaps this would work for you...
function doGet() {
var blob = DriveApp.getFileById('myFileId').getAsHTML();
return HtmlService.createHtmlOutput(blob);
}