Syncing Google Docs to WordPress

As promised, here is part 3 of my post about publishing using Google Docs; this one deals with how to keep already-published WordPress articles synchronized with source content that lives in Google Docs.?

GoPublish is the missing piece for syncing from Drive. It’s a newly expanded Google Suite/Workplace application that connects to your WordPress instance so that you can publish new or updated articles (any type) right in place.?

It's a game-changer for sourcing your WordPress content safely in Google Drive.

Why Sync?

Here’s your TL;DR for the first article:

• Google Docs is an easy, cost-effective place to collaboratively author source files for documentation
• WordPress is an easy, cost-effective place to publish docs, via knowledge base plugins
• Some way is needed to keep gDocs source synced up with WordPress articles

Not far enough — It’s true, there already exist several tools and integrations that push content into WordPress, such as for blog articles. However, their focus is largely on “touch-once” publishing, exporting Google Docs and formatting it for quick, one-time insertion into a steady stream of new WordPress posts. For Documentation and Support sites, however, writing is cumulative and iterative: writers need a way to push docs out to WP and then, later, push updates out to those generated pages, without loss to their URLs, names, categories, or tags.

GoPublish started as a “push once” tool, but it has been expanded to encompass full synchronization. It lets you publish new WP content into any custom post type and publish subsequent updates right in place, all without going to WordPress.?

How it Works

The GoPublish app is an extension you install into your Google Docs account, and you manage your syncs via the extension side dock (right side panel), without leaving your document. It handles publishing for the currently open document: it connects one Google Doc to a post in one of your defined WordPress instances — one document linked to one article. It’s not a bulk processor; when you rewrite a Google Doc and it’s approved for publishing, you publish that one document.

Licensing: There are several subscription levels based on the volume (how many exports a month) and the level of support you need. Access is granted to the Google account you used to sign up. For best results, don’t connect multiple Google accounts in the same browser: that can cause problems with many Google applications.

Updating Custom Posts

Because the most revolutionary use case that GoPublish supports is updating existing custom post types, I’ll walk you through this path:

0 - Connect Domain — The first time only, you will need to connect to one or more WordPress domains, which you will select from for future publishing. GoPublish always has to connect to the domain first in order to detect its custom post types and taxonomy.

1 - Choose Export Type — From here on, the first step of each export is to select the type of publishing you want, because different export options need different options:

• Export Post — These are standard WP blog posts, with categories and tags.
• Export Page — These are standard static pages, which don’t have categories or tags.
• Custom Post (Export or Update) — This is the amazingly flexible feature, the ability to publish content into any custom type. Your documentation or knowledge base plugin will have its own custom post type, which you’ll select from the custom types found in your WordPress instance. And you could single-source even broader types of content, such as the lessons for your WordPress LMS (we use LearnDash).

2 - Select Domain — Now the export begins: Select the domain to publish into (this can include your staging and dev sites). Once connected, it will prompt you with values specific to that site.

3 - Select the Post Type — Next, select which custom post type to update. The more plugins you run on your site, the more custom post types may appear here, such as the ones below that begin “sfwd-”, which are for LearnDash. For example, my Echo Knowledge Base custom type appears here as epkb_post_type, and, because it supports multiple knowledge bases, each one has its own number: epkb_post_type_3. When I publish into my documentation site, which is the third knowledge base I created, I choose the third one:

3 - Select the Post ID — Next, enter the ID (or URL) of the post you want to overwrite. (Tip: Post IDs appear in the URL when you edit a post.) Click Verify post, and look for the green checkmark. The Title field populates from the existing title for the WordPress post, which you can override manually or select the checkbox to use the Heading 1 from your Google Doc.

4 - Set Image Export — You can have the sync push copies of the images into your WP media library, but using the library is not recommended for high numbers of images, both for WP performance and for the time it will take to transfer all of those files into WordPress. The superior and breakthrough option is to let the sync export the images to GoPublish’s third-party CDN (content delivery network), which optimizes cost-effectiveness and performance. (GoPublish also includes a separate Image Size Checker, so you can scope the number, size, and type of images in your document.)

4 - Enable Other Settings — Finally, there are settings to configure the WordPress article as you need, such as opening links in a new tab, making links “nofollow” (to prevent spam and protect privacy), and exporting YouTube links as embedded players. I strongly recommend you enable the last two:?

• Include image alt-text from alt text input (To add this in Google Docs, right-click an image, select Alt Text, and complete the Description.)
• Add Google Doc link as markdown comment

That last one is a terrific feature: whoever edits the WP post will see a markdown block with key information: the URL of the Google Document that is the source file and the date of the last update. This ties them together: to jump back to the source file, highlight the URL, right-click and select Go to…

5 - Update Post — Select Update Post and go! How long it takes to update very much depends on the speed of your site, the length of the post, and the number of images to process. Offloading the CDN is faster than writing to the WP Media Library, but it still takes time. After you see the success message, you’ll have two helpful additions:

• The link to your WordPress post is added below Export Links.
• The ID of the synced post is added to the end of your Google Doc name, so you know it's been synched and you have the ID handy to update next time.

Why it Matters

Much like how generative AI is changing how we work and what we believe is even possible, Google Docs has been that for organizations and institutions. By having a publishing bridge between Google Docs and the world’s largest website platform, we bring the work of technical publishing into the daily toolset that everyone is already using. Where we all work together, we can collaborate without friction and cross the silos so common in our shops.?

And it’s the small app developers, like GoPublish, that have the agility to bring new tools into reality in mere weeks, not years. Job well done!