AppsScriptPulse

Snippet, Solutions, Docs, Drive, Beginner

The Gift of Script: Convert Google Doc to PDF in a given folder

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Convert a Google Doc into a PDF in a given folder and optionally delete the original Doc file.

The following Google Apps Script is designed to create a PDF file of a Google Doc in a Drive folder that you specify, with the option to delete the original Doc. This snippet of code is from larger developed solutions and allows you to understand and replicate the process.

This post is somewhat of an updated version of this Convert Doc to PDF and move into a new folder blog post. Whilst the code in it still works it was part of my early days of learning Apps Script and it was also when Google allowed for files to exist in more than one place (a feature now replaced by Shortcuts).

Source: The Gift of Script: Convert Google Doc to PDF in a given folder

Solutions, Sheets, Web App, V8, Beginner

Letting users run a Google Apps Script on Google Sheets without authorizing scopes and showing the source code

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This is a sample workaround for letting users running Google Apps Script on Google Spreadsheet without both authorizing the scopes and showing the script.

The post highlights the use of the existing =IMPORTML() Google Sheets function and a publish webapp to run a Google Apps Script without the end user having to authorize the script. A limitation of this approach, and also important warning to keep in mind, is the deployed web app needs to be deployed to run as the script owner and by anyone who has the web app link.

Source: Letting Users Running Google Apps Script on Google Spreadsheet without both Authorizing Scopes and Showing Script

Solutions, Sheets, Web App, Beginner

Keep a Journal of Special Moments using Twilio Programmable SMS and Google Sheets

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Learn how to build a Google Sheet journal that accepts new entries via text message. My toddler recently turned two and a half and my second daughter was born three weeks ago, so special moments are abundant but the ability to remember them is severely compromised. His suggestion of recording a memory every day in an Excel sheet or leather bound journal resonated with me, but after a few days of trying to find time to open up Excel and write a memory I realized I needed a more lightweight solution. … Twilio makes it easy and cheap to set up a dedicated phone number that can record those text messages to a Google sheet.

Nice example on the Twilio blog on using their service with Google Sheets. There is little setup required but this can all be achieved in 4 lines of code. Unfortunately, sending/receiving SMS messages with Twilio is not free, but it might be a service you keep in mind for Apps Script projects.

Source: Keep a Journal of Special Moments using Twilio Programmable SMS and Google Sheets

Snippet, Solutions, Docs, Drive, Sheets, Beginner

Bulk create Google Drive Folders and add Files 2.0

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Bulk create Google Drive folders with optional files copied into each one. With full control over naming.

Bulk create Google Drive folders with optional files, from a Google Sheet

Bulk create Google Drive folders with optional files, from a Google Sheet

This post is a variation of this Bulk create Google Drive Folders and add Files tool post.

Key Functionality

  1. Maximum runtime – in order to prevent the tool from reaching the limits imposed by Google you can adjust the number of minutes the tool can run for. Change this in the ‘GlobalVariables.gs’ file in the Script Editor.
  2. Continue from where it left off – if you have a lot of Google folders and files to handle and the above runtime is reached the tool will complete the current row/folder and prompt you to run it again, without duplicating any folders or files already created.
  3. Popups – as well as the ‘Log’ sheet the tool displays a direct popup to the user if it encounters a problem.
  4. Full naming control – you have the ability to tweak every single folder and file name that is created by the tool. See the Concatenate section below to understand the true power of this.
  5. Clickable links – created by the tool which means you can navigate directly to the new folders and files directly from the Google Sheet.
  6. Add more files – the tool currently has columns for 10 files to be added to each folder, but you can actually append more as long as you follow the same convention of 2 columns per file (1 file name and 1 file ID). Do this before you run the tool as you cannot add more files to a folder once it has been created.
  7. Add more folders – after running the tool you can either choose to clear all of the data within it (use the ‘Reset sheets’ option from the ‘Admin’ menu) and start again or you can simply append further rows/folders and re-run without any duplication (if the ‘Folder Link’ column is not blank/empty then it will skip that row).

Source: The Gift of Script: Bulk create Google Drive Folders and add Files 2.0

Solutions, Sheets, Web App, Beginner

Creating a web app with Google Sheets

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A wonderful set of video tutorials showing you how to set up a web app and connecting it to a Google Sheet. It starts off with a simple form and covers areas like getting data from a sheet and sending it back and using Materialize CSS for to easily create a good looking app. Plus, it also looks at connecting a Google Calendar to the app and how to create multiple pages in the web app.

Solutions, Forms, Sheets, Beginner

Issues reporting with translation [using Google Apps Script and Google Forms/Sheets

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In this post Baz Roberts highlights the benefits of Google Apps Script Language Service to translate Google Form responses into another language.

Source: Issues reporting with translation

Solutions, Forms, Sheets, V8, Beginner

Create a book tracker using Apps Script and the Google Books API in 10 minutes

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I wanted a quick and easy way for my kids to track the books they read, as well as a way for my wife to catalog all the books in the house. I know there are other services out there like Goodreads that can store your book list…but I just wanted to house the data myself, and not have to create accounts for my young kids.

Nice little project that glues together Google Forms and Sheets and the Google Book API with a little but of Google Apps Script. Follow the link for more information and the source code.

Source: Create a book tracker using Apps Script and the Google Books API in 10 minutes

Solutions, Drive, Sheets, Beginner

Bulk convert Google Docs to PDFs 2.0

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Bulk convert all the Google Docs within a given folder to PDFs and optionally delete the Docs afterward, version 2.0

The following Google Apps Script tool is designed to bulk convert all Google Docs within a given Google Drive folder into PDFs. You can choose the destination folder for the PDFs to be put into and also whether you want the original Docs to be deleted. This tool does work on Shared drives.

It is an improved version of this Google Doc to PDF tool post.

Improvements / Features

  1. Maximum runtime – in order to prevent the tool from reaching the limits imposed by Google you can adjust the number of minutes the tool can run for. Change this in the ‘GlobalVariables.gs’ file in the Script Editor.
  2. Continue from where it left off – if you have a lot of Google Docs to convert and the above runtime is reached the tool will save its progress and prompt you to run it again, avoiding any file duplication.
  3. HTML popup – as well as the ‘Log’ sheet the tool now displays a direct popup to the user if it encounters a problem.
  4. PDF counter – after successfully running the tool will include the number of PDFs created as part of the success popup to the user.

Source: The Gift of Script: Bulk convert Google Docs to PDFs 2.0

Solutions, Classroom, Sheets, V8, Beginner

Create Google Classrooms using Google Apps Script

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Creating a Google Classroom and maintaining it can be a bit hectic for so many students in a school. Say you are the moderator of your school and your task is to create 10 Google Classrooms for different teachers. Manually doing this can be a very hectic process, that’s where Google Apps Script comes in.

Using Google Apps Script, you can automatically create Google Classroom with the data in the Google Sheet, and paste the Class code in the Google Sheet.

Source: Create Google Classrooms using Google Apps Script

Solutions, V8, Beginner

Improve Performance of Google Apps Script with Memoization – Digital Inspiration

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How to use JavaScript memoization to optimize and improve the performance of your Google Apps Script code. … Memoization is a simple optimization technique that can be used to improve the performance of your Google Apps Script code. The basic idea is that you cache the results of an expensive function call using closures. If the function is called again with the same arguments, the cached result is returned instead of calling and executing the function all over again.

Great tip from Amit Agarwal for improving the performance of data heavy functions. Follow the link to the source post to find out more and a code sample to get started that finds a particular value in a CSV file.

Source: Improve Performance of Google Apps Script with Memoization – Digital Inspiration