extracting data from google spreadsheet into a html table

Question

I have a google spreadsheet that stores data at my work and is constantly being updated via google drive so it is always online editing, what I want to do is to be able to extract the values in those cells and have them show up in a HTML5 table on my website, what would be the best solution for this?

I did try one way which was to just embed the spreadsheet in a iFrame and have that refresh every 5 minutes, but the refresh loading is too slow and it causes issues with trying to get the spreadsheet to fit perfectly in the iframe everytime I refresh. these websites will be on display on TV screens so I dont want to be adjusting them regularly, they will auto refresh and be idle.

Answer 1

Your Google Sheet's rows/columns can be exported as a pretty minimal HTML table. You can grab that HTML and manipulate it however you like. Here's how to get it:

1. Open the Sheet and find your file_id in the URL, and the gid for the specific tab you wish to export (you may have several spreadsheets within a single Google Sheet).

2. Use this URL string, replacing <FILE_ID> and <TAB_GID> with your own:

   • https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/<FILE_ID>/gviz/tq?tqx=out:html&tq&gid=<TAB_GID>

You can set the refresh/recalculation rate under File > Spreadsheet settings to be every minute, if necessary.

Example:

Here is a Google Sheet with some data. To export this as an HTML table, we take:

• the file_id : 1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms and
• the tab_gid : 0

from the URL and substitute those into the URL string (above), yielding:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms/gviz/tq?tqx=out:html&tq&gid=0

Hope that helps. 🍻