How to bold text in a google doc using the google docs api

2
votes

We're using the following code to add a table with 3 columns and a number of rows determined by the number of items in a collection. The first row in the table has headers. We want to bold them but I can't figure out how to do that. I was reading through this but it wasn't making sense on how to get the start and end index of the text in the header row.

var body = new BatchUpdateDocumentRequest {Requests = new List<Request>()
{
    new Request()
    {
        InsertTable = new InsertTableRequest()
        {
            EndOfSegmentLocation = new EndOfSegmentLocation
            {
                SegmentId = ""
            },
            Columns = 3,
            Rows = contractAddendums.Items.Count
        }
    }
}};

docService.Documents.BatchUpdate(body, docId).Execute();

var doc = docService.Documents.Get(newDocId).Execute();
var table = doc.Body.Content.FirstOrDefault(x => x.Table != null).Table;

var requests = new List<Request>();

for (var i = contractAddendums.Items.Count - 1; i > -1; i--){

    var row = contractAddendums.Items[i];
    var r1 = new Request()
    {
        InsertText = new InsertTextRequest()
        {
            Text = row.Text,
            Location = new Location()
            {
                Index = table.TableRows[i].TableCells[2].Content[0].StartIndex
            }
        }
    };

    var r2 = new Request()
    {
        InsertText = new InsertTextRequest()
        {
            Text = row.Variable,
            Location = new Location()
            {
                Index = table.TableRows[i].TableCells[1].Content[0].StartIndex
            }
        }
    };

    var r3 = new Request()
    {
        InsertText = new InsertTextRequest()
        {
            Text = row.Title,
            Location = new Location()
            {
                Index = table.TableRows[i].TableCells[0].Content[0].StartIndex
            }
        }
    };

    requests.Add(r1); 
    requests.Add(r2); 
    requests.Add(r3); 
}

As requested here's a sample of the request body. The actual request is much longer but essentially the same as it's simply an array of the same type of request objects.

[{
    "createNamedRange": null,
    "createParagraphBullets": null,
    "deleteContentRange": null,
    "deleteNamedRange": null,
    "deleteParagraphBullets": null,
    "deletePositionedObject": null,
    "deleteTableColumn": null,
    "deleteTableRow": null,
    "insertInlineImage": null,
    "insertPageBreak": null,
    "insertTable": null,
    "insertTableColumn": null,
    "insertTableRow": null,
    "insertText": {
        "endOfSegmentLocation": null,
        "location": {
            "index": 15806,
            "segmentId": null,
            "ETag": null
        },
        "text": "asdfasdfad",
        "ETag": null
    },
    "replaceAllText": null,
    "updateParagraphStyle": null,
    "updateTableColumnProperties": null,
    "updateTableRowStyle": null,
    "updateTextStyle": null,
    "ETag": null
}, {
    "createNamedRange": null,
    "createParagraphBullets": null,
    "deleteContentRange": null,
    "deleteNamedRange": null,
    "deleteParagraphBullets": null,
    "deletePositionedObject": null,
    "deleteTableColumn": null,
    "deleteTableRow": null,
    "insertInlineImage": null,
    "insertPageBreak": null,
    "insertTable": null,
    "insertTableColumn": null,
    "insertTableRow": null,
    "insertText": {
        "endOfSegmentLocation": null,
        "location": {
            "index": 15804,
            "segmentId": null,
            "ETag": null
        },
        "text": "asdfasdf",
        "ETag": null
    },
    "replaceAllText": null,
    "updateParagraphStyle": null,
    "updateTableColumnProperties": null,
    "updateTableRowStyle": null,
    "updateTextStyle": null,
    "ETag": null
}]
2
google-docs-api
Can you provide the request body? - Tanaike
Request body added. - geoff swartz
Thank you for replying. From your request body and your question, I proposed the flow for modifying the text style of texts of the header row as an answer. Could you please confirm it? If I misunderstood your question and this was not the result you want, I apologize. - Tanaike

2 Answers

1
votes

If you want to bold some text. You need to submit a request similar to the following:

    requests = [
    {
        'updateTextStyle': {
            'range': {
                'startIndex': 1,
                'endIndex': 5
            },
            'textStyle': {
                'bold': True,
            },
            'fields': 'bold'
        }
    },
  ]

The range: {'startIndex': 1, 'endIndex':5} should reference the range of text that should be bold.

0
votes
  • You want to modify the text style of texts in a table.
  • You want to modify the text style of the header which is the first row of the table.
  • You have already been able to put and get for Google Document using Google Docs API.

If my understanding is correct, how about this answer? Please think of this as just one of several answers.

Issue:

At your request body, it is found that the text is inserted. In order to achieve above, it is required to update the text style. But at first, it is required to retrieve the indexes of cells of the header row.

Solution:

Here, I would like to explain this flow using a sample situation. As the sample situation, it uses the following Google Document. As a test case for your situation, the texts of header1, header2 and header3 of the header row are modified as the bold style.

enter image description here

Flow:

  1. Retrieve the table using the method of documents.get of Docs API.

    • At that time, when the following "fields" parameter is used, the readability of data can be increased.
    • body(content(table(tableRows(tableCells(content(paragraph(elements(endIndex,startIndex,textRun/content))))))))

    • The endpoint is as follows.

      GET https://docs.googleapis.com/v1/documents/{documentId}?fields=body(content(table(tableRows(tableCells(content(paragraph(elements(endIndex%2CstartIndex%2CtextRun%2Fcontent))))))))

    • When the method of documents.get is requested with above endpoint, the following value is returned.

      {"body":{"content":[{},{},{},{},
  {"table":{
    "tableRows":[
      {"tableCells":[
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":14,"endIndex":22,"textRun":{"content":"header1\n"}}]}}]},
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":23,"endIndex":31,"textRun":{"content":"header2\n"}}]}}]},
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":32,"endIndex":40,"textRun":{"content":"header3\n"}}]}}]}
      ]},
      {"tableCells":[
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":42,"endIndex":49,"textRun":{"content":"value1\n"}}]}}]},
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":50,"endIndex":57,"textRun":{"content":"value2\n"}}]}}]},
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":58,"endIndex":65,"textRun":{"content":"value3\n"}}]}}]}
      ]},
      {"tableCells":[
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":67,"endIndex":74,"textRun":{"content":"value4\n"}}]}}]},
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":75,"endIndex":82,"textRun":{"content":"value5\n"}}]}}]},
        {"content":[{"paragraph":{"elements":[{"startIndex":83,"endIndex":90,"textRun":{"content":"value6\n"}}]}}]}
      ]}
    ]
  }},
{},{},{},{}]}}

    • The first index of tableRows is the header row.

  2. Retrieve the indexes of header1, header2 and header3.

    • From the retrieved table data, it was found that "startIndex":14,"endIndex":22, "startIndex":23,"endIndex":31 and "startIndex":32,"endIndex":40 are the indexes for header1, header2 and header3, respectively.
    • By using the method of documents.batchUpdate with these values, the text style of texts of the header row can be modified to the bold style.

    • The endpoint is as follows.

      POST https://docs.googleapis.com/v1/documents/{documentId}:batchUpdate

    • The request body is as follows.

      {"requests":[
  {"updateTextStyle":{"range":{"startIndex":14,"endIndex":22},"textStyle":{"bold":true},"fields":"bold"}},
  {"updateTextStyle":{"range":{"startIndex":23,"endIndex":31},"textStyle":{"bold":true},"fields":"bold"}},
  {"updateTextStyle":{"range":{"startIndex":32,"endIndex":40},"textStyle":{"bold":true},"fields":"bold"}}
]}

    • When this endpoint with the request body is requested, the following result can be obtained.

Result:

enter image description here

References: