Google Docs to publish to WordPress (and other engines)
I was just reading the post by Thord Hedengren from the Blog Herald, Docs & Spreadsheets as a blogging tool:
There’s another feature which I haven’t tried out yet. You can actually post your work to a blog by setting up some stuff in Docs & Spreadsheet settings. Blogger seems easy enough, and there are API’s ready for some other systems as well including Movable Type but not Wordpress. Has anyone tried this to a greater extent?
So I just dived in and tried it out!
Well, I’d say still prefer my WordPress post admin screen maybe because of familiarity, and since Firefox 2 comes with a spell checker that makes everything wonderful… but the thing is… it works!
Here’s how you go about doing it.
1. Get started with Google Docs
Head on to Google Docs, and sign in with your Gmail account credentials.
2. Write your document
Google Docs has a nifty rich text editor just like what you get in Gmail, that allows you to do everything - change your font colors, hyperlink, font faces etc.
After you are done, just click save (on the right!)
3. Configure Blog Settings
This brings you to the publish page… edit your blog settings.
You will see this page!
Now, if your blog is hosted on Blogger.com, Wordpress.com, LiveJournal.com or any of those listed in the drop down box, than all you have to do is to select your platform and key in your blog login credentials.
If yours is hosted by yourself, and you need to know your blog API, and the URL to publish to. You can click the -> Click here for yours < - to find out common Blog APIs and URLs. For Wordpress, choose the Movable Type API, and your URL will be http://YOURBLOG/PATH/TO/xmlrpc.php
So key in those stuff, and your login credentials for your blog. Click on test to make sure everything works fine, and you are done!
4. Publish!
Now, for every document you write, all you have to do to post to your blog is to get to the publish page, and click “Post to Blog!”
For me, somehow the phrase “This document has not been published to your blog.” somehow just doesn’t change, even after I have published the post. I wonder why, but just be mindful about that. If not you will end up with multiple posts!
Also, I realised that this is not very nice if you had multiple blogs to post to. Google Docs only allows one blog configuration setting. Note also that you cannot remove the configuration setting once you have configured one!
While Google Doc works to publish a post, I really don’t find it as intuitive and friendly as the native admin screen for each blogging engine. It also doesn’t allow you to add other blog specific things like custom fields, change the post timestamp and stuff like that.
So I’m sticking to my WordPress admin screen. I love it!
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Tan Kian Ann is blog marketing coach based in Singapore. He is passionate in helping individuals and small businesses reach out to the world using blogs. 
November 15th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Visit Tech Tag »
[...] My experience with using Google docs with Wordpress - read and make up your mind This post is written in Google Docs - which means that it is both a test and a review of how it is to use Google Docs for wordpress.SetupSetting up Google docs to publish to my blog is pretty easy (here is a nice guide with screen shots).NameI’ve named document “Using Google Docs to publish to wordpress” in the hope that this will be the name of the post. [...]
February 25th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Visit Passegua
Whenever I try to set up Google Docs for publish on my wordpress I get an error!
February 26th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Visit Kian Ann
Hey Passegua, what error did you get?
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:18 am
Visit Lisa
I have a WordPress site that is hosted elsewhere, but I’m not sure exactly what to enter when it says “http://YOURBLOG/PATH/TO/xmlrpc.php.” I assume “YOURBLOG” should be “www.myblog.com”, but what does “PATH/TO/” represent? Can you help?
Thanks!
March 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 am
Visit Kian Ann
Hi Lisa,
In your WordPress files, (in the folder where wp-config.php is located) there is a file xmlrpc.php. This path you specify in Google Docs should point to that file.
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Visit passegua
My error is (more or less, i quote on memory)
“an error occured, it will be fixed immediately”
I checked many times all the settings, no way!
thanks
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:36 pm
Visit Kian Ann
Oh no Passegua, the error description isn’t descriptive enough for me to be able to help… maybe you could email the peeps in Google or try the Google Docs and Spreadsheets help group?
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Visit passegua
Ok, I quote exactly what I get:
“there is an error we’ll fix it immediately!”
You may read the same issue on google support forum
My blog settings are:
http://lnx.sinapsi.org/wordpress/xmlrpc.php
and the error is: “there is an error we’ll fix it immediately!”
Thanks.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Visit Kian Ann
Hey there,
Have you tried posting to other blogs? Perhaps you could test the same settings on another WordPress blog and then you can isolate if the problem is in the WordPress end or the Google Docs side?
March 2nd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Visit Passegua
No, I didn’t try posting to another blog.
thanks
April 2nd, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Visit Andy
I have been using Google Docs and it works well. However I have another user on my blog that can post, but he gets an error whenever he tries. Anyone else tried with multiple authors posting to wordpress.com?
April 18th, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Visit Gardener.se » Blogga med hjälp av Google Docs.
[...] Utförligare information, med skärmbilder, om hur man ställer in bloggning i Google Docs hittar du på Blogopreneur. [...]
December 12th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Visit Blogging with Google Docs - Blog of Leonid Mamchenkov
[...] configure a few simple settings the first time you do so though). If it sounds interesting, check this post at Blogopreneur.com fordetailed instructions. If it sounds interesting, but you are not sure if [...]
March 27th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Visit Armin Hartmann
I’m trying to find configuration page from your step 3. Thanks for your help,
Armin