Goals of this Automation

Setup

🔑 Setting up Google Service Account Credentials

To allow our scripts to access Google Drive and export documents, you need to create a Google Cloud Project, a service account, and download its credentials as a JSON key file.

Alternatively, you can ask Silke for the service_account_key.json (in which case, you can skip steps 0-3).

0. Create a Google Cloud Project

1. Go to Google Cloud Console.
2. Open the project selector (top bar) and click New Project.
3. Name the project blog-automation.
4. Click Create.
5. Make sure the new project is selected in the top bar.

👉 Note: You need the Project Editor or Owner role on this project to create service accounts and keys.
If you’re the one who created the project, you already have these permissions.

1. Enable the Drive API

1. In the left menu, go to APIs & Services → Library.
2. Search for Google Drive API.
3. Click Enable.

2. Create a Service Account

1. In the left menu, go to IAM & Admin → Service Accounts.
2. Click Create Service Account.
3. Name it blog-exporter and add a short description (e.g. Exports blog content from Google Docs).
4. Click Create and Continue.
   • You do not need to assign project-wide roles to this service account.
   • Just click Done once the account is created.

3. Generate and Download the JSON Key

1. Click on the service account you just created.
2. Go to the Keys tab.
3. Click Add Key → Create new key.
4. Choose JSON and click Create.
5. A file will be downloaded (e.g. blog-exporter-123abc.json).
   • Rename it to service_account_key.json.
   • Move this file into the blog_automation folder of this repo (the same folder where this README lives).
   • Do not commit this file to Git! It should already be listed in .gitignore.

4. Share the Google Drive Folder or Document

1. In Google Drive, right-click the folder (e.g. blog_automation) or a specific Google Doc.
2. Click Share.
3. Enter the service account’s email (looks like blog-exporter@blog-automation.iam.gserviceaccount.com).
4. Give it at least Viewer access.
5. Save changes.
   • Now the service account can read/export files in that folder or doc.

✅ At this point you should have:

• A Google Cloud Project called blog-automation with the Drive API enabled.
• A service account called blog-exporter.
• A local service_account_key.json file inside your blog_automation folder (same place as this README, ignored by git).
• The service account email added as a Viewer to your Google Drive folder or doc.

Set up Virtual Environment & Install Required Package

• Set up venv python -m venv venv
• source venv/bin/activate
• pip install -r requirements.txt

Automation Script

Find Document ID

Each Google Doc has a unique ID in its URL.
For example, if the URL is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ABCDEFghijklmnopQRS_tUVWXyz1234567890/edit

Then the Document ID is:

1ABCDEFghijklmnopQRS_tUVWXyz1234567890

Use this ID in your scripts when exporting the document.

Run Automation

1. Activate virtual environment: source venv/bin/activate
2. Run the script: python doc_to_html_conversion.py <DOC_ID>