Download your pdf files from Blogspot

Here was an obvious problem, not readily discovered on the web. Let's say that you want to use Google Docs to share content (i.e. a really great Acrobat pdf file of your project.) No problem, except that when you use the share link clients are directed to the Google Docs viewer -- potentially confusing. The expected experience is that the client clicks on a link and one of either two things happens: the file is downloaded to the local computer; and/or in the case of a pdf, it could open automatically in Acrobat Reader. I dare you to try and find that solution by doing a Google search. Here it is step-by-step:

1. Do that Google Docs upload thing and "share" the document.
2. Copy the link and paste it into some kind of simple text program (i.e. TextWrangler.)
• Here is what I got with the operative piece highlighted in red: http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B3PfAxstEIJXMThhZjNlOWUtZTY5Zi00YTM5LTgxYjAtMzg1YWRhNjI0YmQ2&hl=en
• The default method of sharing will take you into the Google Docs viewer.
3. Replace the term fileview? to instead read export?format=pdf&.
4. Therefore the "corrected" link should read as follows:
• http://docs.google.com/export?format=pdf&id=0B3PfAxstEIJXMThhZjNlOWUtZTY5Zi00YTM5LTgxYjAtMzg1YWRhNjI0YmQ2&hl=en
• The requested pdf file will either download or automatically open Acrobat Reader depending on how the client's local computer is configured.

This solution is relevant to ongoing work on an open source electronic portfolio. Here is an abstract for a paper scheduled to be presented at the 2010 DCA Conference.