How do I create a "copy only" link in Google Sheets or Docs?

Question

Oftentimes people will create templates in Google Sheets or Google Docs and have the first part of the document say something like this:

BEFORE YOU MAKE ANY CHANGES, go to File > Make a copy...

This is less than ideal. Is there a better way to make it obvious that a doc needs to be copied without having to write this text?

Answer 1

TL;DR

Replace /edit in the url with /copy

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If you follow the tutorial Quickstart: Managing Responses for Google Forms, you'll see that the first step is:

1. Make a copy of the sample spreadsheet Apps Script Quickstart: Managing responses for Google Forms.

Clicking on the link takes you to a page such as:

If you look at the URL they use you'll see that it's:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=1HgtMSoatp1M6pQwwwQqHgZX7jZRldDbSX8VIJ468d4c&newcopy=true

The key is just your document's ID that you can find in the URL.

Formatting it that way is cumbersome. Fortunately, if you follow the URL it'll redirect you to another url, and you'll notice there is an easier way. Just take your existing docs url:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HgtMSoatp1M6pQwwwQqHgZX7jZRldDbSX8VIJ468d4c/edit

and replace edit with copy:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HgtMSoatp1M6pQwwwQqHgZX7jZRldDbSX8VIJ468d4c/copy

Careful not to forget the /d/.