Presentation operations

The Google Slides API lets you create presentation files and manage existing ones. The examples on this page show some common page presentation operations using the presentations.batchUpdate method.

These examples are presented as HTTP requests to be language neutral. To learn how to implement a batch update in different languages using the Google API client libraries, see the following guides:

• Create and manage presentations
• Search for files and folders
• Merge data into a presentation

Create a presentation

The following presentations.create code sample shows how to creates a blank presentation file entitled "My New Presentation".

It's also possible to create blank presentation files using the Google Drive API files.create method by specifying application/vnd.google-apps.presentation as the MIME type.

The following is the request protocol to create a presentation:

POST https://slides.googleapis.com/v1/presentations

{
  "title": "My New Presentation"
}

List existing presentation files

The Slides API doesn't provide a method for retrieving a list of presentations but the Drive API does. The files.list method (presented below) uses field masks to return a list of presentation files from your Drive, with the file ID, file name, and a link for opening the file. The request also specifies application/vnd.google-apps.presentation as the MIME type.

The following is the request protocol to list existing presentation files:

GET https://www.googleapis.com/drive/v3/files?q="mimeType=application/vnd.google-apps.presentation"&fields=files(id,name,webViewLink)

The response to this request has the following structure:

{
 "files": [
    {
     "id": "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789",
     "name": "Project Vision",
     "webViewLink": "https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/presentation/d/abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789/edit?usp=drivesdk"
    },
    {
     "id": "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789",
     "name": "Untitled Presentation",
     "webViewLink": "https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/presentation/d/ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789/edit?usp=drivesdk"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Replace text throughout a presentation

The following presentations.batchUpdate code sample shows how to use the ReplaceAllTextRequest method to replace text throughout the presentation specified by the PRESENTATION_ID. You can discover the value for the presentation ID from the presentation URL.

Every instance of the string "Gizmo Corp." is replaced with the text "Gadget Inc." This includes text in text boxes and other shapes, on slides, and within masters. In this instance, the text replacement is case-sensitive by setting matchCase to true.

The following is the request protocol to replace text throughout a presentation:

POST https://slides.googleapis.com/v1/presentations/PRESENTATION_ID:batchUpdate

{
  "requests": [
    {
      "replaceAllText": {
          "containsText": {
            "text": "Gizmo Corp.",
            "matchCase": true
          },
          "replaceText": "Gadget Inc."
      }
    }
  ]
}