How to Import a Google Docs Document into Google Sheets

In Summary

Google Docs and Google Sheets are part of Google’s Docs Editor suite of applications, and they work well when used for their intended purposes.
Docs is a word processor for creating and editing documents, while Sheets is a spreadsheet application for representing and organizing data in a tabular format.
If you receive a document with tabular formatted data on Google Docs, or if you happen to create one yourself, you can easily move the document data from Docs to Sheets.

Google Docs and Google Sheets are part of Google’s Docs Editor. Google Docs Editor is a suite of web-based applications that are free to use and include both Docs and Sheets, in addition to a few other applications such as Google Keep, Google Forms, and Google Slides.

If you use Google Docs and Google Sheets and want to transfer data between the two, or if you have a document on Docs that you would want to import into Sheets for better organization and maintenance, here’s a guide to help you with the same.

Import a Google Docs Document into Google Sheets

To transfer data from a Google Docs document to Google Sheets, you need to, first, export (download) the Docs document in a compatible format and save it either on your computer or Google Drive. Once exported, you can then import this document into Google Sheets.

Here are the steps on how to do this.

Step 1. Open Google Docs in a web browser and sign-in to your account.

Step 2. Find the document you want to export to Sheets and open it.

Step 3. With the document open, go to File > Download.

Now, depending on what (and how) information is present on this document, you need to choose its download format. Google Sheets supports the following formats: xls, xlsx, xlsm, xlt, xltx, xltm, ods, csv, txt, tsv, tab, and html.

Generally speaking, the kind of Docs document that you would likely import to Google Sheets will have some form of tabular presentation of data in it. This is so because it makes more sense to import a document that contains data in a tabular format on Sheets than some other format. As such, you need to select Web page (.html, zipped) from the Download options.

Step 4. When you download the Docs document in Web page format, you get the file in the (.zip) file. Since Sheets does not support the (.zip) format, you need to unzip this file to get the (.html) file inside it. To do this, open Finder and double-click the zip file. This will automatically extract the contents of the file for you. Alternatively, if you are on Windows, open the file in File Explorer, right-click on the downloaded file (in .zip format), and select the unzip tool to unzip its content.

Step 5. Next, open Google Sheets in a browser and sign in to your account.

Step 6. Click on Blank under the Start a new spreadsheet section to create a new spreadsheet. Alternatively, you can choose some other Sheets template as per your requirements.

Step 7. Now, click File > Import. In the Import file window, tap on Upload and hit the Select a file from your device button.

Step 8. Navigate to the folder where you downloaded the Google Docs. Select the (.html) file and click Choose for Upload.

Step 9. You will now see a prompt asking you to select the import location. If you are working on a new spreadsheet, click Replace spreadsheet and hit Import data. Alternatively, you can select any other option from the list as per your requirements.

Step 10. Finally, with everything set, click on Untitled spreadsheet at the top and give a name to your document to save it.

Importing Google Docs data into Google Sheets

If you followed all the steps until now, your Google Docs document should have been successfully imported into Google Sheets (with most of its formatting preserved), and you should see your data in a tabular presentation just as it was in Docs.

Of course, you might still need to adjust the row and column spacing, as well as some other formatting of the imported document, to make its data legible in Sheets’ tabular format.