Category: DriveApp

How to Validate Specific Users on a Web App in Google Apps Scripts

You’ve created an awesome Google Apps Script web app for your secret society within your Google Workspace organisation or …dom! dom! DOM! … the world. The problem is that you only want to share your web app with the worthy. Those selected few. 🐐🛐🛐🛐

How do you do this? How to prevent this most coveted of apps from reaching the wrong hands?

It’s actually surprisingly simple.

In this tutorial, we will explore how to validate selected users to provide access to your web app. For our example, we validate users based on whether or not they have edit access to a Google Drive file ( a common occurrence). In the discussion, we will also look at alternative ways of validating emails.

One of the bonuses of the approach we will go through is that it can also be easily adapted for use in Google Workspace Add-ons, and Editor Add-ons like sidebars and dialogue boxes.

We’ll start off with an example and then move to a quick-use guide for those of you who just want to get in and apply the code to your own project. Then for those who want to know how it all works, I’ll dive into the details.

Let’s get started!

Continue reading “How to Validate Specific Users on a Web App in Google Apps Scripts”

Google Apps Script: Automated PDF Certificated Creator That Is Emailed to the Attendee (Updated Feb 2022)

Google Apps Script: DriveApp, PropertiesService, SpreadsheetApp, GmailApp, SlidesApp. Google Slides, Google Sheets.

Have you ever wondered how people create certificates en mass and send them out automatically? You are in the right place.

In this tutorial, we are going to:

  1. Create Certificates of Attendance for multiple attendees using Google Slides and a list of attendees in Google Sheets.
  2. Send those certificates as an attached PDF to the attendees.

We’ll set it up so it is super user-friendly with a handy menu in your Google Slide template so that all you have to do is to update your Google Sheet of names each time you run the course and then click a few buttons.

Google Apps Script Menu Items in Google Slides

Also, we will run an example so you can see how it all works and what you need to do to set it up.

For the coders out there, I think I have documented the Google Apps Script code enough for you to figure out how to quickly implement your own project. However, I have also added a smalls discussion of some parts of the code at the end.

This is a standalone tutorial. However, it draws from two main tutorials if you want to explore those first (Though it is not essential):

Let’s get cracking.

Continue reading “Google Apps Script: Automated PDF Certificated Creator That Is Emailed to the Attendee (Updated Feb 2022)”

Google Apps Script: Create multiple versions of a document based on Google Sheet Data and a Google Doc Template (Mail Merge)

Google Apps Script: SpreasheetApp, DocumentApp, DriveApp; Google Sheets, Google Docs

If you have ever worked in LibreOffice or Microsoft Excel you will probably be familiar with the mail merge. Traditionally, mail merge is used to create multiple versions of a document and snail-mail them to someone.

These days, we don’t often use the snail mail approach, but it is a regular occurrence for us to need to produce multiple versions of reports based on a data set usually from a spreadsheet.

In this tutorial, we will create a document merger that will create new Google Documents based on a dataset from a Google Sheet using Google Apps Script.

If you want to quickly jump into your own project with our script, I’ll provide you with a quick-use guide.

Then, we will set up a template for our Google Doc and generate our Google Sheet data (don’t worry, I’ll share the document so you can follow along).

Finally, we will jump into the breakdown of the code for those legends who are learning how to create their own Google Apps Script.

Let’s get started:

Note: As always, take what you need and don’t worry about the rest. 

Continue reading “Google Apps Script: Create multiple versions of a document based on Google Sheet Data and a Google Doc Template (Mail Merge)”

Google Apps Script: Extract Specific Data From a PDF and insert it into a Google Sheet (Updated Feb 2022)

Google Apps Script: DriveApp, Advanced Drive Service, SpreadsheetApp,  DocumentApp Javascript: spread operator, map, regex

Ah, bureaucracy at its finest.  Have you ever asked for a list from a client, another department or agency and instead of saving into a file that might even be considered marginally useful, they give it to you as a pdf. A… p…d…f.

Gee, thanks.

After some prostrations to the great Google Apps Script gods, I had a though.

“Hey, can’t we convert a PDF to a Google Doc with just a click of the button? Surely the great Google Apps Script devs have made it so we can do it programmatically too.”

And you know what? They bloody well did. The big legends.

The Scenario

I’ve just received a bunch of PDFs. The PFDs are all labelled by the class number. Take a look at the files in my Google Drive:

PDFs of sections in Google Drive

Each PDF file contains a list of student IDs that I need to extract and put into a Google Sheet.

PDF file with student IDs

The aim is to have a list of student IDs in column A and their corresponding sections in column B.

As you can see, we have some pretty standard text in the PDF that should be easy for Google to recognise so that we can extract the IDs.

The list of names in the demo sheets were randomly generated by AI!

NOTE! As always, I have tried to create this tutorial for varying levels. Feel free to follow along, or just grab what you need and get stuck into your own project.

If you are playing along, you can find a copy of the PDF files below. Simply add them to your own Drive before you get started:

PDF files by Section.

Continue reading “Google Apps Script: Extract Specific Data From a PDF and insert it into a Google Sheet (Updated Feb 2022)”

Google Apps Script – How to Change the File Name of Non-Native Files like MS Word Docs, PDF’s and Excel files.

Google Apps Script, DriveApp

I had an unexpected need to change some non-native file names – in my case, MS Word docs – to something else to appease my masters. Being the resident Igor, I delighted in the task. 

The Problem

I had a folder of MS Word documents on my Google Drive that needed to all be renamed. They all needed the same name with an index number to distinguish that they were different files. 

There were however other file types in the folder. 

The problem with non-native files in Google Drive is that it’s a little tricky to find their ID. Besides, I just wanted to change ALL files that were MS Word in the folder. 

What I would need to do is search for all files inside my selected folder that are of MS Word type and rename them with the same name but with a counter at the end. For example:

Old File Name New File Name
boring.doc cranberrySauce.doc
sad.doc cranberrySauce1.doc
yawn.doc cranberrySauce2.doc

Continue reading “Google Apps Script – How to Change the File Name of Non-Native Files like MS Word Docs, PDF’s and Excel files.”

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