Google Docs API: Trouble accessing published documents via URL

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1

Hey everyone, I’m stuck with a Google Docs API issue. I can easily open docs in my Drive, but I’m hitting a wall with published ones.

When I try to get a published doc using its URL, I keep getting a 404 error. The message says ‘Requested entity was not found.’ I’ve tried tweaking my service account permissions and playing around with different documentID formats, but no luck so far.

My goal is to grab the JSON from the published doc’s webpage and then work with that data. Any ideas on what I might be missing? I feel like I’ve tried everything!

Here’s a quick example of what I’m trying:

from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

def fetch_doc(doc_id):
    try:
        service = build('docs', 'v1', credentials=creds)
        document = service.documents().get(documentId=doc_id).execute()
        return document
    except HttpError as error:
        print(f'An error occurred: {error}')
        return None

# This is where it fails
published_doc = fetch_doc('published_doc_id_here')

Any help would be awesome. Thanks!

2

hey there, i’ve dealt with this before. the trick is to use the drive api first to grab the file id. then you can use that with the docs api.

make sure ur doc is actually public or shared with ur service account. also, double check that you’ve enabled the drive api in ur project.

hope this helps! lemme know if u need more details.

3

I’ve had my fair share of headaches with the Google Docs API, especially when it comes to published documents. One thing that’s worked for me is using the Google Sheets API instead. It might sound counterintuitive, but hear me out.

If you publish your Google Doc as a web page and then import it into a Google Sheet using the IMPORTHTML function, you can then access that data through the Sheets API. It’s a bit of a workaround, but it’s been reliable for me.

Here’s a rough outline of the process:

  1. Publish your Google Doc to the web
  2. Create a new Google Sheet and use =IMPORTHTML(“your_published_doc_url”, “table”, 1)
  3. Use the Sheets API to access this data

It’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s gotten me out of a bind more than once. Just remember to keep your Sheet updated if the original Doc changes. Good luck with your project!

4

I’ve encountered a similar issue when working with published Google Docs. The problem is that the Google Docs API doesn’t directly support accessing published documents via their URLs. Instead, you need to use the Drive API to get the file metadata first, then use that to access the document content.

Here’s a potential solution:

  1. Use the Drive API to get the file ID from the published URL.
  2. Use that file ID to access the document content via the Docs API.

You’ll need to enable the Drive API in your Google Cloud project and adjust your service account permissions accordingly. Also, make sure the document is actually shared publicly or with your service account.

This approach has worked for me in the past, though it does add an extra step to the process. Hope this helps point you in the right direction!