Using Google Docs as a quick and easy CMS

Published on 29th Oct 2009

In search for a simple CMS to use on a holding page, my thoughts turned to Google Doc’s. 10 minutes later I had a script that works very nicely, so thought I would share it. To use:

  • Create a Google Document
  • Click ‘Share’
  • Click ‘Publish as a website…’
  • Copy and paste the document reference into the script e.g. http://docs.google.com/View?id=dd9zpc9r_4jh8qv76j

<?php
// Use the script freely , but if it's useful then please post a comment - thanks James
// Ps. the array is used to later experiment with spreadsheets etc...
 
// Specify document
$gd_doc = "dd9zpc9r_4jh8qv76j";
$gd_doc_type = "doc";
 
$gd_array = array();
 
$gd_array["doc"]["url"] = "http://docs.google.com/View?id=".$gd_doc;	
$gd_array["doc"]["start"] = '<div id="doc-contents">';
$gd_array["doc"]["end"] = '<div id="google-view-footer">';	
 
$working_doc = file_get_contents($gd_array[$gd_doc_type]["url"]);
$gd_start = strpos($working_doc,$gd_array[$gd_doc_type]["start"]);
$gd_end = strpos($working_doc,$gd_array[$gd_doc_type]["end"]);	
$gd_content = substr($working_doc, $gd_start, ($gd_end-$gd_start) )
?>
 
<?=$gd_content?>
  • Marc Pageau

    this is pretty cool, I never actually thought about using google docs as a type of CMS, I have always used databases but this seems like it could be useful on some projects, especially those that require the client to update the database and you dont want to build a back-end tool for them to do it. Thanks for Sharing!