1

I already have an "export to CSV" button on my site. But I'd like to have an "Open in Google Sheets" button, which opens the CSV directly into Google Sheets.

That'll save the user a few steps, so they will no longer have to (1) download the CSV, and (2) import it into Google Sheets.

Any way to do this?

pk1557
  • 516
  • 7
  • 21

2 Answers2

2

If you wanted to avoid the full API . . .

Use Google Script to import the CSV into a Google Sheet and set the script trigger to run on a sensible schedule (every, minute, hour, day etc.). 

//adapted from http://stackoverflow.com/a/26858202/3390935
 function importData() {
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
  var url = 'HTTP://YOURURL.COM/FILE.CSV';
  var file = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url); // get feed

    var csv = file.getBlob().getDataAsString();
    var csvData = CSVToArray(csv); // see below for CSVToArray function
    var sheet = ss.getActiveSheet(); 
// loop through csv data array and insert (append) as rows into 'NEWDATA' sheet
for ( var i=0, lenCsv=csvData.length; i<lenCsv; i++ ) {
  sheet.getRange(i+1, 1, 1, csvData[i].length).setValues(new Array(csvData[i]));
}

};


// http://www.bennadel.com/blog/1504-Ask-Ben-Parsing-CSV-Strings-With-Javascript-Exec-Regular-Expression-Command.htm
// This will parse a delimited string into an array of
// arrays. The default delimiter is the comma, but this
// can be overriden in the second argument.

function CSVToArray( strData, strDelimiter ) {
  // Check to see if the delimiter is defined. If not,
  // then default to COMMA.
  strDelimiter = (strDelimiter || ",");

  // Create a regular expression to parse the CSV values.
  var objPattern = new RegExp(
    (
      // Delimiters.
      "(\\" + strDelimiter + "|\\r?\\n|\\r|^)" +

      // Quoted fields.
      "(?:\"([^\"]*(?:\"\"[^\"]*)*)\"|" +

      // Standard fields.
      "([^\"\\" + strDelimiter + "\\r\\n]*))"
    ),
    "gi"
  );

  // Create an array to hold our data. Give the array
  // a default empty first row.
  var arrData = [[]];

  // Create an array to hold our individual pattern
  // matching groups.
  var arrMatches = null;

  // Keep looping over the regular expression matches
  // until we can no longer find a match.
  while (arrMatches = objPattern.exec( strData )){

    // Get the delimiter that was found.
    var strMatchedDelimiter = arrMatches[ 1 ];

    // Check to see if the given delimiter has a length
    // (is not the start of string) and if it matches
    // field delimiter. If id does not, then we know
    // that this delimiter is a row delimiter.
    if (
      strMatchedDelimiter.length &&
      (strMatchedDelimiter != strDelimiter)
    ){

      // Since we have reached a new row of data,
      // add an empty row to our data array.
      arrData.push( [] );

    }

    // Now that we have our delimiter out of the way,
    // let's check to see which kind of value we
    // captured (quoted or unquoted).
    if (arrMatches[ 2 ]){

      // We found a quoted value. When we capture
      // this value, unescape any double quotes.
      var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[ 2 ].replace(
        new RegExp( "\"\"", "g" ),
        "\""
      );

    } else {

      // We found a non-quoted value.
      var strMatchedValue = arrMatches[ 3 ];

    }

    // Now that we have our value string, let's add
    // it to the data array.
    arrData[ arrData.length - 1 ].push( strMatchedValue );
  }

     // Return the parsed data.
      return( arrData );
    };

Make that sheet public and append /copy to the URL.

  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/YOURGDOCID/copy
Tom Woodward
  • 1,653
  • 14
  • 21
1

You can use the Google Sheets API.

This link provides guides for several programming languages, references, samples, etc. https://developers.google.com/sheets/

Good luck.

AWaddington
  • 725
  • 8
  • 18