YJL

More than a year ago, I wrote a post about how to view local PDF file. To be honest, I never actually used that script, I have a bookmark for viewing PDF online for very long time even before I wrote that script. I dont download PDF when I need to open a PDF file, just directly view it using Google Docs Viewer.

If you are a Firefox user, itd be great to know the keyword and %s in bookmarks. Keyword of bookmark allows you to access the bookmark by just typing it in address bar, %s in bookmark URL will be replaced with the string you put after the keyword when you open a bookmark using address bar.

To show you how to use bookmark, first, create a bookmark with URL as follows:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=%s

and set keyword to gdv.

Next, find a random PDF link online and type in the following text in address bar:

gdv[Space]http://example.com/foobar.pdf[Enter]

Google Docs Viewer will show you the document if its not get blocked. I have seen one or two websites actually blocks Google Docs Viewer.

You can have embedded version with the following URL, which has less controls:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?embedded=true&url=%s

For me, as a fan of Pentadactyl, after I yank a URL of PDF, I just type in:

[o]gdv[Space]http://example.com/foobar.pdf[Enter]

If you are smart, you should have learned you can set some keywords for your most visited bookmarks with single letter or two. You dont need to go through your bookmark bar, you just type the keyword and press enter.

Press ;d to get the hints if links are PDF, DOC, etc.

Yesterday, when I was reading my custom Full Referrer URL report, I saw an Email button (with BETA label alongside). This was added back in last November.

Out of curiosity and hopefully there would be some convenience from this feature, I decided to try it out:


Today, I got the email and realized it's an attachment (of course). There is no direct way to view within Gmail, I had to open it with a local program to view. The file format like CSV or TSV is not very friendlily human-readable, there is no alignment across columns. So I am not sure what's the point of sending this format regularly.

I doubt anyone have patience to import the file into spreadsheet for custom analysis every day. Weekly, maybe. That is only reason I can think of why you need such function. But if you do, then using API will be much smarter way to do like I do to generate my daily reports. I am just too lazy to customize one for this Full Referrer URL report which only have a few entries a day, it is not really worth my time.

After I read that announcement post, it reminded me that there is a PDF export version option. I resent the report with PDF and only once (in Frequency) to have a sneak preview. I think this is the best way to review the report, Gmail supports PDF format, you don't even need to have a local PDF viewer program. You can just view it online, awesome! This is a sample:


I reset for a new schedule for PDF version and make it active for 12 months. You can delete or edit scheduled emails from Admin Assets Scheduled Emails.