I found a couple of old (nearly 10 years?) topics about Google Sheets previews, or lack thereof. Is there any way to have that work today? Here’s why I’m asking. In our community, we track important information in a Google Sheet. On Facebook, the preview of the linked spreadsheet in the post is actually a snapshot of the current state of the spreadsheet. It’s super practical because we don’t even necessarily have to open it if the colour-coding in the spreadsheet gives us enough information (it is often the case). Here’s a screenshot of a typical post, to show you what I mean: [Screenshot 2025-12-16 at 23.25.30] The multi-coloured cells give us an overview of the situation at a glance, without having to go and click on the Google Sheet (unless we want to view more detail). Would there be any way to achieve this kind of “embedding” without Discourse topics?

On Google docs desktop, go to file → share, then publish → embed. You can then paste the generated iframe into Discourse. You must add the Google docs domain to the allowed iframe URLs in Discourse admin. The result looks like this: [Screenshot_20251216_234605_Chrome] The window remains small so it’s not very practical…

[image] Canapin: On Google docs desktop, go to file → share, then publish → embed. Thanks! Definitely looks like it would do the trick. Do you know if there is any way of doing this on mobile too? I’d guess at least half of our members are « mobile only » :fearful:

Note: the following was merged (thanks @merefield and @darkpixlz) from another topic I just created… with the exact same question as in December. It fell through the cracks in my brain (ski accident was nearly a year ago folks, but I’m still not back in good working order for some things, clearly – thanks for your indulgence). In my community each member has a tracking spreadsheet that they normally share when they post for help. The way it works now on Facebook, there is a “preview” that shows a snapshot of the latest part of the spreadsheet: [Screenshot 2026-03-07 at 19.08.52] This is super useful (at least one thing Facebook is useful for/at!) because it gives us a view of the relevant data we need without even clicking on the spreadsheet. We often click, of course, but it gives us a general understanding of what kind of situation we’re dealing with. I read here that for the onebox to work on Discourse the google doc had to be published. I tried that with mine but it doesn’t seem to work: Oscar de Steph Lantus FSL 🇨🇭VD (Lausanne) This Sheet is private It even says the sheet is private, when it’s not! Here is the result when I share the “share with link” link, same thing: Oscar de Steph Lantus FSL 🇨🇭VD (Lausanne) This Sheet is private Is there any way to get something better than that? It’s a fundamental aspect of how we function: the key point of our work is to help people track and interpret blood glucose that they monitor at home, and this spreadsheet model is our “magic” tool to do this. I’m guessing that if Facebook can manage to display a meaningful snapshot of a google spreadsheet, there should be a way to manage that on Discourse too?

(oooh, nasty, good luck with recovery!!! :heart:) did @Canapin’s suggestion help any?

[image] merefield: did @Canapin’s suggestion help any? Let’s see, it “kinda works” but the iframe is really tiny :-/ – not really useable as such I’m afraid: [Screenshot 2026-03-07 at 20.48.02]Would there be a way to fix the iframe size?

[image] stephtara: Would there be a way to fix the iframe size? Can you link to this post if possible? I can check CSS classes for you to see if that’s possible..

[image] Test de partage de tableau Je m'équipe Tableau Avec le lien de partage: Avec publication et “embed” (plus enquiquinant à faire, donc faudra voir comment simplifier ça au max pour les membres si c’est ça qu’on finit par devoir faire): If there’s something to be done with a bit of CSS that’s good news!

If this works, I’m trying to figure how to make it simple for my non-techy members. Would there be a way to define a kind of “user shortcode” where they paste the embed code to their spreadsheet once somewhere (in a custom user field?) and they can just type something like %my_spreadsheet% (or whatever) in their post for the iframe to display?

I did shortly have a look, there is no specific class for docs iframe embeds but I did notice its max width was 100% but not the real width.. setting that to 100% made it wider and height is up to you [image] .post__regular .cooked { iframe { max-width: 100%; max-height: min(1000px, 200vh); width: 100%; height: 500px; } }

I would personally add it as a component to the site so that it globally applies to all users

[image] darkpixlz: I would personally add it as a component to the site so that it globally applies to all users yeah just added the CSS to the component I created for these little “community tweaks”, thanks! And now is the question of making it easy for people to insert that iframe in their posts (because if they have to go over to Google Sheets, publish, embed, copy code, come back, paste, it won’t happen)

Google Sheet Preview: is there any way?

Product Support

darkpixlz (Pyx ) March 7, 2026, 7:51pm 7

Can you link to this post if possible? I can check CSS classes for you to see if that’s possible..

Topic		Replies	Views
Google Spreadsheet only showing as link Product Support	5	1714	April 12, 2019
Approach to embedding excel using javascript Development	8	1581	February 14, 2023
Google Sheet Embed post in topic always jumps to focus Bug	4	2662	August 10, 2016
Publishing Google Sheets in an iframe Bug	0	601	January 4, 2022
Google docs onebox gem requires a "published" document Product Support	32	10389	August 6, 2020

Google Sheet Preview: is there any way?

Related topics