This is a sample script for exporting Google Docs files (Spreadsheets, Documents, and so on) in PDF format with batch requests using Google Apps Script.
As a reference sample situation, in order to export 100 Google Document files as PDF files, when I tested this sample script, the processing time was about 150 seconds and no error occurred. And, I confirmed that 100 valid PDF files were created in my Google Drive.
Kanshi Tanaike has been busy again, this time looking at how you can handle batch exports from Google Docs, Sheets and Slides using Google Apps Script. There is quite a bit of engineering to get your head around but if you are looking for a copy/paste solution everything is well commented for you to drop this code into your own project. If you’d like more context about the solution there is a related post on Stack Overflow.
If you have ever worked with Google Apps Script (GAS), you may have found yourself in this situation. You want to move some files from some Google service to another, e.g., from Drive to a Google Cloud Storage Bucket. You get the file’s contents using GAS’s built-in service in the form of a Byte array. You pass this byte array to the URLFetchApp.fetch() function in the body.
All is going good and well, but then you notice. Why is it taking 30 seconds to upload a 10MB file? Am I doing something wrong? Is GAS not meant for this?
Don’t panic. I’ve been there, and I decided to take a closer look. Here’s what I found.
In this article Ignacio Lopezosa takes a deep dive into how to handle bytes in Google Apps Script, sharing his journey in finding a solution on how to share (large) files.
During the summer I was asked to help with some video recording for a rugby tournament, but rather than spending hours rewatching footage to find highlights, I quickly threw together some tech to make things a lot easier.
A slick solution that uses a AppSheet app for data collection with Apps Script to cue up video files hosted on Google Drive. The Apps Script code is hosted on GitHub if you’d like to take a peak. Hopefully this example gives you inspiration for your own little projects.
When I create some applications using Google Drive, there are often the case which is required to retrieve the file list and folder list. I had prepared the script each time for each case so far. But recently, I thought that if there is a library for retrieving the file and folder list (as a tree), it will be useful for me and other developers.
Image credit: Martin Hawksey (with the help of DALL·E 2)
Think 10x — supercharging your Google Apps Script solutions by directly calling Google Workspace Enterprise APIs.
The Google Apps Script built-in services like SpreadsheetApp, Maps and GmailApp are a great onramp for users with limited coding experience, the flip side is you can find yourself easily getting results but not in the most efficient way. DriveApp is a great example where Google have made it easy to iterate across folders and files, but when you have lots of folders and files it becomes a time consuming process and you hit execution limits.
An alternative approach is using Google Apps Script to make direct calls to the Drive API. The benefits of this approach is you can be more specific in the data you want back and it gives more flexibility with how you call the API, in some cases with the ability to make batch or asynchronous processes.
In this post I highlight a method ideal for scenarios when you want to index larger volumes of My Drive files and folders to a Google Sheet with calls directly to the Drive API. The post includes some sample code you can use which instead is able to reduce a 4 minute runtime to index 10,000 files and folders to one that can complete in under 40 seconds!
Learn how the access the creator’s email of a Google Shared Drive with Google Apps Script using the Drive Activity API & Admin Directory SDK.
Scott Donald has found a clever way to get the Shared Drive creator using Apps Script and the Google Drive Activity API. Whilst there is a Google Drive ‘Drives’ endpoint the response doesn’t include the creator in the Drives Response object. This post is a nice example of how you can combine data from different Google Workspace APIs. Follow the source link for a detailed explanation.
Organise Google Drive files into a JavaScript Object so that they can be looped through for each named individual.
Files to loop through and organise
The following Google Apps Script is designed to go through a folder of Google Drive files where a number of tutors have individual files for groups of students they teach. The code will collate all of the relevant files (specifically their IDs) that belong to each tutor, so that at a later date we can loop through the organised data set and create individual Google Sheets for each tutor and compile their student data into it.
What this code ultimately allows us to achieve is the ability to go through the files and get them organised for further coding.
In this example we have a file name pattern of ModuleCode – Tutor Name – Group Number for example ABC – Jane Doe – Grp 02. So we want to collate all of the files that belong to Jane Doe first, then move on to the next tutor (Micky Mouse in this example).
The collated data will look like this:
{
"Jane Doe":[
"FILE ID HERE",
"FILE ID HERE",
"FILE ID HERE"
],
"Micky Mouse":[
"FILE ID HERE",
"FILE ID HERE"
]
}
I use Google Apps Script to support staff and students in my job. I enjoy dabbling with creating tools to help with automation and I freely share my learning experiences on my blog, where I also have a number of useful Google Add-ons: www.pbainbridge.co.uk
Take a Google/Shared Drive folder full of files that you want to make a copy of and place into another set of existing Drive folders.
Bulk add files to existing Google Drive folders
The following Google Apps Script tool is designed to take a Google/Shared Drive folder full of files that you want to make a copy of and place into another set of existing Drive folders.You can decide if you want the subfolder name appending/prepending/ignoring in the file name of the new copy to help make it unique.
The tool will iterate through a single level of folders (not sub-subfolders) and for each one place a copy of the files into it.
I use Google Apps Script to support staff and students in my job. I enjoy dabbling with creating tools to help with automation and I freely share my learning experiences on my blog, where I also have a number of useful Google Add-ons: www.pbainbridge.co.uk
This is a sample script for merging multiple PDF files as a single PDF file using Google Apps Script. [and] This is a sample script for converting all pages in a PDF file to PNG images using Google Apps Script.
Kanshi Tanaike has recently been exploring and sharing some Apps Script solutions for handling PDF Documents using the PDF-LIB JavaScript library. So far they have looked at merging PDF files as well as converting PDF pages into PNG images.
The solution uses fetch and eval to load PDF-LIB, but with a minor modification hoisting the declaration of setTimeout you can also copy the source code into the script editor and avoid the evils of evals (a modified example here).
The Apps Script execution runtime limit will be a factor in the size of PDF Documents you can handle, but for smaller jobs a great solution to keep in mind.
Bulk combine multiple CSV files into a single Google Sheet, putting the data in specific locations and creating multiple tabs.
Bulk combine CSV files into a single Google Sheet
The following Google Apps Script is designed to take a number of CSV files (structured in an identical way) stored in a Google Drive folder and combine them all into a single Google Sheet file. It maps the data within the CSV file to specific cells in the Google Sheet, along with creating a tab for each of the CSV files to separate them out.
I use Google Apps Script to support staff and students in my job. I enjoy dabbling with creating tools to help with automation and I freely share my learning experiences on my blog, where I also have a number of useful Google Add-ons: www.pbainbridge.co.uk
