Google-doc-viewer-helper NPM

Google Doc Viewer Helper Utils

Google provides a Doc Viewer that leverages their Google Docs platform to show a certain amount of file formats it is compatible with. This library is to ensure we can generate valid Google Doc Viewer URLs, and serves as a utility to know if files are a valid format, that can be leveraged in applications such as ensuring we don't unnecessarily try to route users to an embedded Google Doc Viewer that can't open the file requested anyway.

Getting Started

npm i google-doc-viewer-helper -S

Import in your application:

import gDocHelper from 'google-doc-viewer-helper';

To generate a generic Google Doc URL, leverage

gDocHelper#generateGoogleDocUrlWithParams(params, viewerOverride)

parameter	type	options	defaultValue	description
params	object	n/a	null	All parameters to be used in a Google Doc url
viewerOverride	string	'default'/'gview'	'default'	Which viewer implementation Google Docs will use to open the document

const testFileUrl = 'http://www.fakeurl.com/myTest.pdf';
const myParams = {
    embedded: false,
    url: testUrl,
};
gDocHelper.generateGoogleDocUrlWithParams(myParams);
// => https://docs.google.com/viewer?embedded=false&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fakeurl.com%2FmyTest.pdf

gDocHelper.generateGoogleDocUrlWithParams(myParams, 'gview');
// => https://docs.google.com/gview?embedded=false&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fakeurl.com%2FmyTest.pdf

You can also use shorthand to generate embedded Google doc urls (Most common usecase). gDocHelper#generateGoogleDocUrlWithParams(urlToEmbed, additionalParams, viewerOverride)

parameter	type	options	defaultValue	description
urlToEmbed	string	n/a	null	URL to file we wish viewer to open
additionalParams	object	n/a	null	Additional parameters for the Google Doc URL (WARNING: Can override default params)
viewerOverride	string	'default'/'gview'	'default'	Which viewer implementation Google Docs will use to open the document (WARNING: 'gview' is deprecated, but supports some special cases. An error will be written to the console when selecting this viewer.)

const testFileUrl = 'http://www.fakeurl.com/myTest.pdf';
gDocHelper.generateEmbeddedGoogleDocUrl(testFileUrl);
// => https://docs.google.com/viewer?embedded=true&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fakeurl.com%2FmyTest.pdf

You can also simply check if a specific file format can be opened by Google Docs Viewer gDocHelper#isSupportedFormat(urlToValidate)

parameter	type	description
urlToValidate	string	URL to file we wish to validate as being supported by Google docs

gDocHelper.isSupportedFormat('http://www.fakeurl.com/myTest.pptx');
// => true

gDocHelper.isSupportedFormat('http://www.fakeurl.com/myTest.xlsx');
// => true

gDocHelper.isSupportedFormat('http://www.fakeurl.com/myTest');
// => false

gDocHelper.isSupportedFormat('http://www.fakeurl.com/myTest.bat');
// => false

Running tests

We leverage mocha and chai for testing, and cover common usecases as part of simple unit testing.

npm test

TODO

~~Remove lodash dependency~~
Expose supported formats in case they want to be listed or used elsewhere
Expose supported viewers and their requirements.
- Enforce requirements when using these viewers