I’m working on a business website and need to show previews of various document formats like PDFs and Word files. I found out about Google’s document viewer that you can access through their docs platform.
I’m wondering if it’s legal to use this viewer service for commercial purposes on my company’s web application. Are there any restrictions in their terms that would prevent business use?
If Google’s viewer isn’t suitable for commercial projects, does anyone know of alternative solutions that Google offers for document preview functionality? I need something reliable that can handle multiple file types without requiring users to download files first.
Any advice on the legal aspects or alternative approaches would be really helpful. Thanks!
I’ve worked with document viewers in enterprise setups, and Google’s document viewer is risky for commercial use. It’s not actually a commercial API - you’re just hijacking their consumer product without permission. Google can change or kill access anytime without warning, and I’ve seen companies get burned when they suddenly shift their embedding policies. For production apps, go with dedicated services like PSPDFKit or GroupDocs Viewer instead. They’re built for commercial use with real SLAs and support. Costs more upfront but you won’t get blindsided by legal issues or service outages.
I’ve dealt with similar integration issues before. Google’s document viewer is tricky for commercial use - it’s not really designed as a formal API, so there aren’t clear licensing terms. That’s a liability risk you don’t want in business apps. Google Cloud Document AI works better for commercial stuff, though it’s more work to set up than just embedding the viewer. If you’re handling lots of Office files, Microsoft’s Graph API has solid document preview services too. Both give you proper business support and clear usage terms, which you really need when building commercial apps that can’t afford downtime or legal headaches.
totally feel ya! google’s viewer can be tricky for commercial stuff, their rules are tough. you might wanna look into pdf.js or mammoth.js, they work well for files and give u more options without relying on google.