Automatically update images in Google Docs-based documentation
Using a Google Doc to document internal processes (or external product docs, if you’re really daring) has the big plus of familiarity.
Most everything else, IMO, is a minus — which is why docs-focused platforms exist! But one minus you can at least work around is that images embedded in a Doc won’t auto-update, even if they were loaded from a remote URL.
That’s right, all 6 options here for Insert » Image result in a local copy of the image:
Even the promising By URL doesn’t work like an HTML <img src> where updates to the remote file are picked up on reload. Instead, it just copies the file into the document that one time. To pick up changes, you need to delete the image and Insert again.
But there’s a better way via a bit of Apps (Java)Script.
Here’s the key to making the code work. When you insert an image, also set its link to the image’s original URL. Here, I used Insert » By URL to grab the screenshot https://blog.teknkl.com/conte
