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google-slides-api

Is it possible to move a Shape from a slide to another?

I use the Google Slides API on a NodeJS server to edit a presentation and I can't find anything in the documentation on moving an object to another slide, a Shape for example.

Solution

  • Answer:

    You have to do this by getting the shape from the response of presentations.pages.get, removing it, and inserting it with presentations.batchUpdate.

    More Information:

    In order to 'move' an object from one slide to another using the API, you in fact have to make two requests: one to remove the current object, and one to insert it into the new slide.

    Firstly, you will need to make a request to presentations.pages.get in order to get all PageElement objects in the page. As per the documentation, a Shape is an instance of a PageElement object which represents a shape on a slide.

    The response of presentations.pages.get will be a Page resource:

    {
  "objectId": string,
  "pageType": enum (PageType),
  "pageElements": [
    {
      object (PageElement)
    }
  ],
  "revisionId": string,
  "pageProperties": {
    object (PageProperties)
  },

  // Union field properties can be only one of the following:
  "slideProperties": {
    object (SlideProperties)
  },
  "layoutProperties": {
    object (LayoutProperties)
  },
  "notesProperties": {
    object (NotesProperties)
  },
  "masterProperties": {
    object (MasterProperties)
  }
}

    The Shape will be contained within the response['pageElements'] resource from this request and will be of the form:

    {
  "objectId": string,
  "size": {
    object (Size)
  },
  "transform": {
    object (AffineTransform)
  },
  "title": string,
  "description": string,

  // Union field element_kind can be only one of the following:
  "elementGroup": {
    object (Group)
  },
  "shape": {
    "shapeType": enum (Type),
    "text": {
      object (TextContent)
    },
    "shapeProperties": {
      object (ShapeProperties)
    },
    "placeholder": {
      object (Placeholder)
    }
  },
}

    Once you have obtained the Shape object out of the response you get from presentations.pages.get, you will need to then create a CreateShapeRequest out of the retrieved properties:

    {
  "objectId": string,
  "elementProperties": {
    object (PageElementProperties)
  },
  "shapeType": enum (Type)
}

    And a DeleteObjectRequest which can be used to remove the Shape on the previous slide:

    {
  "objectId": string
}

    The DeleteObjectRequest and CreateShapeRequest can be both contained inside the same batchUpdate request. The request body should be of the form:

    {
  "requests": [
    {
      object (Request)
    }
  ],
  "writeControl": {
    object (WriteControl)
  }
}

    The full documentation for the batchUpdate method can be seen here.

    References: