Editing and styling text

You can edit and style text using text ranges, which are represented by the TextRange type. A TextRange represents a segment of text within a shape or within a table cell. Calling getText() on a shape or table cell returns a text range that covers the entire text.

If you use methods that edit how text fits within a shape, any autofit settings applied to the shape are deactivated.

Using text ranges

A text range has two indexes that delimit the segment of text covered by a text range: the start index and end index. You can determine these indexes using the getStartIndex() and getEndIndex() functions.

To read the contents of a text range, use the asString() or asRenderedString() functions.

To retrieve a subrange from within a text range, use the getRange() function.

The following script creates a text box on the first slide and sets its text content to "Hello world!". It then retrieves a subrange that spans just the "Hello".

try {
  // Get the first slide of active presentation
  const slide = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides()[0];
  // Insert shape in the slide with dimensions
  const shape = slide.insertShape(SlidesApp.ShapeType.TEXT_BOX, 100, 200, 300, 60);
  const textRange = shape.getText();
  // Set text in TEXT_BOX
  textRange.setText('Hello world!');
  console.log('Start: ' + textRange.getStartIndex() + '; End: ' +
    textRange.getEndIndex() + '; Content: ' + textRange.asString());
  const subRange = textRange.getRange(0, 5);
  console.log('Sub-range Start: ' + subRange.getStartIndex() + '; Sub-range End: ' +
    subRange.getEndIndex() + '; Sub-range Content: ' + subRange.asString());
} catch (err) {
  // TODO (developer) - Handle exception
  console.log('Failed with an error %s ', err.message);
}

The text range returned by a shape or table cell will always cover entire text, even if text is inserted and deleted. So the above example produces the following log statements:

Start: 0; End: 13; Content: Hello world!
Start: 0; End: 5; Content: Hello

Inserting and deleting text

You can also insert and delete text shapes and table cells using a text ranges.

• insertText() and appendText() let you insert text.
• setText() replaces a text range's text with the provided text.
• clear() deletes text from within a text range.

The following script demonstrates the use of these functions:

try {
  // Get the first slide of active presentation
  const slide = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides()[0];
  // Insert shape in the slide with dimensions
  const shape = slide.insertShape(SlidesApp.ShapeType.TEXT_BOX, 100, 200, 300, 60);
  const textRange = shape.getText();
  textRange.setText('Hello world!');
  textRange.clear(6, 11);
  // Insert text in TEXT_BOX
  textRange.insertText(6, 'galaxy');
  console.log('Start: ' + textRange.getStartIndex() + '; End: ' +
    textRange.getEndIndex() + '; Content: ' + textRange.asString());
} catch (err) {
  // TODO (developer) - Handle exception
  console.log('Failed with an error %s ', err.message);
}

This script creates a text box on the first slide and sets its text content to "Hello world!". It then deletes characters 6 through 11 ("world"), and inserts the text "galaxy" at index 6 instead. The above example produces the following log statement:

Start: 0; End: 14; Content: Hello galaxy!

Search and replace

Use the replaceAllText() function on presentation or page to perform a global find and replace across the entire presentation or a specific page.

The find() function on TextRange returns the instances of a string within the range. It can be used along with setText() for performing find-and-replace within a shape or table cell.

Paragraphs, list items, and runs

TextRange provides functions to return useful collections of text entities. Some of these functions include:

• getParagraphs(), which provides all paragraphs which overlap the text range. A paragraph is a sequence of text which terminates with the newline character, "\n".
• getListParagraphs(), which returns the list items in the current text range.
• getRuns(), which provides the text runs that overlap the current text range. A text run is a segment of text where all the characters have the same text style.

Text styling

Text style determines the rendering of text characters in your presentation, including font, color, and hyperlinking.

The getTextStyle() function of a text range provides a TextStyle object used for styling text. The TextStyle object covers the same text as its parent TextRange.

try {
  // Get the first slide of active presentation
  const slide = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides()[0];
  // Insert shape in the slide with dimensions
  const shape = slide.insertShape(SlidesApp.ShapeType.TEXT_BOX, 100, 200, 300, 60);
  const textRange = shape.getText();
  // Set text in TEXT_BOX
  textRange.setText('Hello ');
  // Append text in TEXT_BOX
  const insertedText = textRange.appendText('world!');
  // Style the text with url,bold
  insertedText.getTextStyle()
      .setBold(true)
      .setLinkUrl('www.example.com')
      .setForegroundColor('#ff0000');
  const helloRange = textRange.getRange(0, 5);
  console.log('Text: ' + helloRange.asString() + '; Bold: ' + helloRange.getTextStyle().isBold());
  console.log('Text: ' + insertedText.asString() + '; Bold: ' +
    insertedText.getTextStyle().isBold());
  console.log('Text: ' + textRange.asString() + '; Bold: ' + textRange.getTextStyle().isBold());
} catch (err) {
  // TODO (developer) - Handle exception
  console.log('Failed with an error %s ', err.message);
}

The above example first creates a text box on the first slide and sets its content to "Hello ". Then it appends the text "world!". The newly appended text is bolded, linked to www.example.com, and its color is set to red.

When reading styles, the function returns null if the range has multiple values for the style. So the above sample produces the following log statements:

Text: Hello; Bold: false
Text: world!; Bold: true
Text: Hello world!; Bold: null

There are many other styles that can be applied to text. More details can be found in the TextStyle reference documentation.

Paragraph styling

Paragraph styles apply to entire paragraphs, and include things like text alignment and line spacing. The getParagraphStyle() function in TextRange provides a ParagraphStyle object for styling all the paragraphs that overlap the parent text range.

The following example creates a text box on the first slide with four paragraphs, then center aligns the first three paragraphs.

try {
  // Get the first slide of active presentation
  const slide = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides()[0];
  // Insert shape in the slide with dimensions
  const shape = slide.insertShape(SlidesApp.ShapeType.TEXT_BOX, 50, 50, 300, 300);
  const textRange = shape.getText();
  // Set the text in the shape/TEXT_BOX
  textRange.setText('Paragraph 1\nParagraph2\nParagraph 3\nParagraph 4');
  const paragraphs = textRange.getParagraphs();
  // Style the paragraph alignment center.
  for (let i = 0; i <= 3; i++) {
    const paragraphStyle = paragraphs[i].getRange().getParagraphStyle();
    paragraphStyle.setParagraphAlignment(SlidesApp.ParagraphAlignment.CENTER);
  }
} catch (err) {
  // TODO (developer) - Handle exception
  console.log('Failed with an error %s ', err.message);
}

List styling

Similar to ParagraphStyle, ListStyle can be used for styling all paragraphs which overlap the parent text range.

try {
  // Get the first slide of active presentation
  const slide = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides()[0];
  // Insert shape in the slide with dimensions
  const shape = slide.insertShape(SlidesApp.ShapeType.TEXT_BOX, 50, 50, 300, 300);
  // Add and style the list
  const textRange = shape.getText();
  textRange.appendText('Item 1\n')
      .appendText('\tItem 2\n')
      .appendText('\t\tItem 3\n')
      .appendText('Item 4');
  // Preset patterns of glyphs for lists in text.
  textRange.getListStyle().applyListPreset(SlidesApp.ListPreset.DIGIT_ALPHA_ROMAN);
  const paragraphs = textRange.getParagraphs();
  for (let i = 0; i < paragraphs.length; i++) {
    const listStyle = paragraphs[i].getRange().getListStyle();
    console.log('Paragraph ' + (i + 1) + '\'s nesting level: ' + listStyle.getNestingLevel());
  }
} catch (err) {
  // TODO (developer) - Handle exception
  console.log('Failed with an error %s ', err.message);
}

The above example creates a text box on the first slide, containing four paragraphs: the second paragraph is indented once and the third paragraph is indented twice. Then it applies a list preset to the all the paragraphs. Finally, each paragraph's nesting level is logged. (The paragraph's nesting level comes from the number of tabs before the paragraph's text.) So above script produces the following log statements:

Paragraph 1's nesting level: 0
Paragraph 2's nesting level: 1
Paragraph 3's nesting level: 2
Paragraph 4's nesting level: 0