URL syntax and display options?

Question

I recently came across a Google Sheets that had a slightly different syntax in the URL. I found these tags after the Spreadsheet Key:

&single=true&gid=0&range=B5%3AB5&output=html

I experimented by putting each of these at the end of one of my docs and discovered some things changed as a result:

&single=true &gid=0 &range=B5%3AB5 &output=html

I was particularly interested in &range=. When I chose a regular range such as A1:B2 it also worked.

But why &range=B5%3AB5?

What does it mean and how do I use it?

Answer 1

This link has a few of the ones you mentioned and some you didn't

Reference Guide - Google Spreadsheets API - Google Code

some of the page is irrelevant to the question.

Answer 2

The special characters are encoded using URL encoding. If you have to use special characters in the URL, you will need to encode them. You can use a web app such as this for doing the same.