Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Google Blogger: one problem fixed: pasting Google Docs spreadsheet now looks good, not terrible.

Finally!  How difficult could it have been for Google to fix?

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2013  Google Blogger software problems.

And why can't I integrate stuff from Google Docs/Drive into blogger?  I cannot copy/paste from a Google spreadsheet into a blogger post and maintain any form.  It just looks like a mess.  I cannot find any way to accomplish this.  That's pretty basic stuff.

I finally figured out how to get a Google spreadsheet graph into a blogger post and it's ridiculously absurd.  I have to publish the graph, then copy the image html and paste that into the blogger post in html mode.  How about drag and drop?  Something.  Anything.  Google should be embarrassed.

I'm a big Google supporter but this stuff is really turning me off.  The problems, and I haven't even gotten into the sloppy editing and formatting deficiencies, are a genuine burden that slow the creation process and make me much less likely to even bother.  And I'm sick of seeing this all the time:

An error occurred while trying to save or publish your post. Please try again. Ignore warning

I used Wordpress while writing for a big blog and it did not have formatting problems.  I don't know about some of the other stuff since I was working within a corporate structure and not native Wordpress.  I hate the idea of switching but right now I'm not getting any benefit from using Google's blog service.  There is no integration with any other Google stuff.  NONE!
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I had to copy that from blogger.com, paste it into Notepad, then copy that very plain text into the editing area in blogger in order to get it to (usually) format like the rest of what I am writing.

Recently the pasting of Google Drive Docs, whatever the heck it's currently called, spreadsheets into the blogger editor works really well.  OK, the font is off but it's no longer an embarrassing mess.  Maybe I could change the font but so far I haven't wanted to temp fate.  Here check this:

http://radicalbaseball.blogspot.com/2013/11/team-salary-cap-2003-2013.html

The first matrix is copy/paste from Microsoft Access, which ironically, always worked OK in Blogger.  The others below are from Google Docs, as is the graph.  It's still difficult to get a graph in there and to size it properly, especially if you haven't done it in a while.  It's easy to forget how.

That's one small step.  Thanks, Google, but how about finishing the job?

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