Below is a simple bookmarklet (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookmarklet) to make it easier to capture the content of a webpage into a google doc. This is similar (but much simpler and less functionality) to Evernote Web Clipper (see https://evernote.com/webclipper/).
This bookmarklet will copy the URL and the title of the current page. Since most browsers forbid directly manipulating the clipboard contents, it makes a copy by creating a pop-up with all the data highlighted and asks the user to press control-c (the keyboard copy shortcut) and then enter. Once you press enter it will create a new google document for you in a new tab. You can simply press control-v (the keyboard paste shortcut) to put in the URL and title.
If you press escape or hit 'cancel' in the popup, nothing happens and you return to your original webpage.
If you happen to have some text selected on the current webpage, this will be appended to the end of the pasted block. However, note that it will be converted to plain text. No formatting (bold, italics, fonts, etc.) will be retained nor will links in the copied text be preserved.
The pasted text has the following format:
The first line is for tags. I use hashtags to help me sort and classify the information I save. This line let's me create whatever hashtags are appropriate for the particular content I'm clipping.
Next is the URL of the original site you are clipping from. I find this useful if I want to return and read the original article or if I want to use it as a reference later.
Next is the original page title. This is also set as the document title through a URL parameter to the google create URL.
If you have any text selected on the original page, it will appear last in the pasted block. I usually don't use this feature, but I added it in for those who want a one-and-done solution to web clipping.
Of course at this point you can edit as necessary. I usually select the title line and change it to 'title' style. I also add the appropriate hashtags on the top line. I then go back to the original page and select, copy, and paste in whatever bits of the page I want to save.
Just create a new bookmark and make the text below (starting with javascript:) the URL of the bookmark. Note that you will need to replace the "YOUR FOLDER ID HERE" string with the actual google docs folder ID you want to use. "How do you find this folder ID" I hear you asking. Good question. Launch google drive (https://drive.google.com) and navigate to the folder you want to use. On the end of the URL line is a big ugly number. As far as I can tell, they all start with 0B followed by a bunch of other letters and numbers. Copy everything after the last forward slash and that's your folder ID.
You can create different bookmarks to create documents in different google docs folders by supplying the appropriate folder ID in each bookmarklet.
Copy the text below into your bookmark URL (be sure to substitute your folder ID):
javascript:(function(){var folder="YOUR FOLDER ID HERE"; var text=""; if(window.getSelection){text=window.getSelection().toString();}else if(document.selection && document.selection.type!="Control"){text=document.selection.createRange().text;}if(prompt("Press Ctrl+C, Enter", "Tags: \n\n"+location.href+"\n\n"+document.title+"\n\n"+text)) window.open('https://docs.google.com/document/create?usp=drive_web&folder="+folder+"&title='+encodeURIComponent(document.title))})()
I keep getting an error message from Google. See attached.
