Google Drive is one of my secret weapons.
One of the many ways I use it is to store documents (like the aforementioned guide) inside my GDrive account. And through some clever coding, I can force that document to be automatically downloaded at the click of a button. Of course, there are plenty of other options for document storage out there, including Amazon's S3 service, Dropbox, and even protecting files within your own website… but I've found my Google Drive to be pretty simple to execute – and it's free to use… up to 15GB, so I rarely use another option.
Here's how I do it:
STEP ONE:
Upload a document to Google Drive
STEPS TWO & THREE:
Change the access level of the document so it can be shared with anyone who has the link. Then, copy the blue highlighted link.
This is the URL which I copied in the following example: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0mRGO2mnicWb0FFZDhCeEFkak0/view?usp=sharing
STEP FOUR:
Identify the unique document ID, which is the combination of letters and numbers preceding the part that says “/view?usp=sharing”
Take that code and place it at the end of the following: https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=
(see the following example…)
The resulting URL will be https://drive.google.com/uc?export=download&id=0B0mRGO2mnicWb0FFZDhCeEFkak0 (in my example, at least).
STEP FIVE:
You can now take that URL and embed it as a link on text or a button or even in an email.
