Dominik Kugelmann | 19 Sep, 2020
Understanding Google Docs and Drive Links helps you to make more efficient use of your tools.
When you use Google Docs on a daily basis you find yourself working with long Google Docs links very often. These links are your entry point to using any Google Docs file and enable fast and easy access to them. And with some advanced knowledge on how to use them you can enhance your productivity immensely (and look cool while doing so). This post shall help you understand the individual parts of these links and enable you to update them to fit individual use cases.
Let’s check the basic structure of a Google Drive link, shall we?
Following is the link to the document I have written this post in:
docs.google.com/document/d/1cf0Rh8_WJo4k0Ckg5C3N0MyS-qwOeXnwLDcPUqHiPYE/edit#heading=h.cg1ltxxbleyz
Let’s get to the fun part. The part where you can adapt and change the URL to your will and needs. As we have seen above you can change the last part of the URL (the one after the last /). Here are our options:
We recommend you default to /template/preview if you just want to share a file so people can make a copy of it as this will let the user preview the document before deciding to make a copy. They may already have it or really don’t need it and this way they have the ability to see that without creating an actual copy of the document which they may need to (and forget to) delete.
Using /copy you can define a couple of parameters for the copy. These are based on the real Create a Copy dialog. To define these parameters, you would need to start the first parameter with a ? and string all other parameters behind it with a &.
The entire link can look like this:
/copy?copyCollaborators=false©Comments=false&title=New+Research+Report©Destination=
Make your workplace more productive by using Google Docs links to your advantage: save time by linking to certain parts in long documents, or let your colleagues quickly create new documents based on a template you linked to in an email. Have fun linking!
Dominik Kugelmann is a German entrepreneur, founder, and Chief of Vision of 22d consulting; a consultancy specialised in helping customers adapt to the future of work by making digital transitions a seamless process. Dominik is also a board member of HERMINE e.V. and very involved in organizations helping with the European refugee crisis. In their free time they like to spend time in the Bavarian mountains and ski! https://22dconsulting.com/
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