Embedding a Google Sheet on a website can be a great way to display data in a professional and easy-to-update manner. Rather than copy-pasting tables or spreadsheets that may not format well, you can embed a Google Sheet on a website to seamlessly integrate your functions, data, images, and graphs. The embedded Google Sheet will even automatically update on your site when changes are made to the original Sheet file.
This allows you to efficiently manage your data in one place while displaying it professionally across the web.
Today’s post will cover everything you need to know to embed a Google Sheet on a website successfully.
We will walk through the simple process step-by-step. Whether you want to share charts, tables, calculations, or other Sheet content, this guide will teach you how to smoothly embed a Google Sheet on a website.
How to Get Your Google Sheet Ready for a Website
We understand how excited you are to learn how to embed a Google Sheet on a website. However, you need to format it right so it looks good on the site.
To get you started on that, here’s a beginner-friendly guide to help you:
- Text Formatting: Feel free to make your text bold, italic, or any other style. It will look the same on your website.
- Single Tab Data: Make sure all the info you want to show is in one tab of your Sheet.
- Size Matters: Keep your Sheet small so people don’t have to scroll too much on the website.
- First Row for Titles: Use the first row for the names of your columns.
Getting these things right means your Sheet will look good on the website, and you’ll have fewer problems later.
Note: Templates and web scrapes in Google Sheets frequently have a header row at the top. This top heading row can cause issues when you embed the Sheet in a website. The header won’t display correctly.
To avoid problems, delete the very first row if it contains a header. This ensures the actual column headers are always in row one of the spreadsheet. With the top header row removed, your real header row will show up correctly on the embedded Sheet on your webpage.
After deleting the header row, you should be left with basic column headers like this:
How to Embed a Google Sheet Using Publish to Web
Having covered the basics of what it entails to embed a Google Sheet on a website, it’s time we take things up a notch.
In this section of today’s tutorial, we will show you how to embed Google Sheets on a website using the Publish to Web feature provided by Google Sheets.
And just so you know, the process is seamless and straightforward. Plus, you don’t need to be a Google Sheets genius to execute this.
Let’s get started, shall we?
Step 1: Open Google Sheets Doc
First, you need to open the Google Sheets document you’d like to embed on a website.
We already have ours open, so we will proceed to the next step.
Step 2: File > Share > Publish to Web
Having launched the Google Sheets documents you’d like to embed to a website, navigate to the File menu. Here, you’ll find several options.
From these options, hover your mouse on Share. This will reveal two more options. Since our goal is to embed the sheet on a website, we will select the option for Publish to Web.
If you did everything right, you should see a pop-up menu in the middle of your screen that looks like this:
Step 3: Select Embed and Publish
Considering that our objective with today’s guide is to embed a Google Sheet on a website, we will go ahead and click on the option for Embed in the pop-up window.
Feel free to choose which part of the spreadsheet you’d like to publish.
Once all these settings have been configured as described above, you can click on the green Publish button.
When you hit the Publish button, you should see a pop-up notification asking you for confirmation. Here, you simply want to click OK to give Google Sheets the go-ahead to publish to the web.
Step 4: Copy the Code and Paste it to the Website
Once you give permission for the sheet to be published to the web, you should see a highlighted code in the text box under the Embed tab.
What you want to do here is copy the code on the text box and paste it to your website. Doing this will embed the spreadsheet directly on your website.
Embedding a Google Sheets In WordPress
In the previous section, we showed you how to embed a Google Sheet on a website, which was pretty straightforward.
Now, we want to show you how to embed Google Sheets in WordPress.
Remember the code we copied and pasted in the previous section? We will also need it to embed a sheet on a WordPress site.
Here is how to go about it:
First, open the WordPress page where you’d like to display your Google Sheet. Then, at the top of the page. Click on the icon for Paragraph. This action will reveal a list of options. From those options, select Code. The code editor window will be added to your WordPress page.
Here, paste the Google Sheets iframe code that you got from the ‘Publish to Web’ feature in Google Sheets.
After pasting the code, click ‘Save draft’ at the top of the page to save your changes.
Finally, click ‘Preview’ to check how the embedded Google Sheet will look on your published page.
Once you review the embedded spreadsheet, you can go ahead and publish it.
Making Your Google Sheet Fit Perfectly on Your Website
Now that your Google Sheet is on your website. Let’s make sure it fits just right. You can change its size easily. Here’s how:
- Adjust Size in Code: In your website’s Google Sheets iframe code, add height=”x” and width=”x” right after the word iframe. Replace x with the number of pixels you want for height and width.
- Check the Changes: After you change the size, save your work and click ‘Preview’ to see how it looks. You can make the Google Sheet bigger or smaller to match your webpage better.
Remember, though, the size you set stays the same, even if you view it on different devices like phones or tablets. On small screens, the table might be too big and cover other parts of your page.
To fix this, you might need to use something called ‘reactive CSS code’ in your website design. This makes the Google Sheet change size to fit different screens.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Can You Embed a Google Sheet on a Website?
There are several ways to embed a Google Sheet on a Website.
Method 1 – Download as HTML
- In the Sheet, click File, then Download
- Select Web page (.html, zipped)
- This downloads the Sheet as HTML code to embed
Note: The embedded sheet won’t update in real-time if you edit the original Sheet
Method 2 – Publish to the Web (for real-time updates)
- In the Sheet, click File > Share > Publish to the web
- Click Embed, then select what parts of the Sheet to publish
- Click the green Publish button, then OK to confirm
- In the Embed tab, copy the embed code
- Paste this code into your website to embed the Sheet
Note: The embedded sheet will update on your site when edits are made to the Sheet
Can I Embed a Whole Google Sheet Tab in My Website?
Yes, when publishing your Sheet to the web for embedding, you have the option to embed the entire active tab. Simply select the tab you want before clicking “Publish to the web.” Then, choose “Entire document” when picking what to embed, and the full tab will be embedded as-is.
What Happens If I Delete the Original Google Sheet After Embedding It?
If you delete the original Google Sheet that is embedded in your website, the embedded version will no longer work. It will show an error message. So it’s important not to delete the original Sheet file if you have it embedded – if you need to remove it from the web, unlink or delete the embedded version rather than delete the source Sheet.
Final Thoughts
As you can see, it is straightforward to integrate Google Sheets into any website. By following the simple steps to publish your Sheet to the web and copy the embed code, you can seamlessly merge your charts, data tables, calculations, and more into an online page.
Key Takeaways:
- Properly format your Sheet before embedding to avoid issues
- Publish your Sheet with the “Publish to the web” option
- Embed entire sheets or selected parts of the spreadsheet
- Copy the iframe embed code and paste it into your site’s code
- Adjust height and width to fit if needed
With these basics down, you’ll be able to professionally display your Google Sheet information on any website. The embedded Sheet will even update in real time when you edit the original.
So, don’t settle for copy-pasted tables and spreadsheets that lack formatting and functions. For an integrated, automated approach, embed Google Sheets to showcase your data. Just follow the simple steps in this guide to embed Sheets quickly and smoothly.