Convert date to dd/mm/yyyy during injection of data from google sheets to google slides using google apps script

Question

I've created a bit of a script that allows me to use data stored in a Google Sheet to generate a set of Google Slides (based on a pre-formatted template slide).

PreviousTarget and CurrentTarget in the script below reference cells that are formatted as Date cells within Google Sheets. The format defined is dd/mm/yyyy. When I run the script, the correct dates are injected into the Google Slide, however, instead of the dd/mm/yyyy formatting, they look like this:

Sun Jul 26 2020 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (British Summer Time)

I can resolve the issue via changing the formatting of the two cells to a plain text string within the Google Sheet. But is there a way to reformat the dates during the running of the script?

Any ideas how I can fix the formatting during the injection to Google Slides?

  var dataSpreadsheetUrl = ""; //sorry, I removed link to the sheet here as it contained sensitive information

  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.openByUrl(dataSpreadsheetUrl);
  var deck = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation();
  var sheet = ss.getSheetByName('1 - Project Overview');
  var values = sheet.getRange('A3:R').getValues();
  var slides = deck.getSlides();
  var templateSlide = slides[1];
  var presLength = slides.length;
  
  values.forEach(function(page){
  if(page[1]){
    
   var Project = page[1];
   var Lead = page [4]
   var RagStatus = page[5];
   var Trend = page[6];
   var Objectives = page[9];
   var Summary = page[10];
   var PreviousTarget = page[11];
   var CurrentTarget = page[12];
   var Risk1 = page[14];
   var Risk2 = page[15];
   var Issue1 = page[16];
   var Issue2 = page[17];
    
   templateSlide.duplicate(); //duplicate the template page
   slides = deck.getSlides(); //update the slides array for indexes and length
   newSlide = slides[2]; // declare the new page to update
    
    
   var shapes = (newSlide.getShapes());
     shapes.forEach(function(shape){
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Project}}',Project);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Lead}}',Lead);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Objectives}}',Objectives);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Summary}}',Summary);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{PreviousTarget}}',PreviousTarget);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{CurrentTarget}}',CurrentTarget);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{RagStatus}}',RagStatus);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Trend}}',Trend);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Risk1}}',Risk1);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Risk2}}',Risk2);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Issue1}}',Issue1);
       shape.getText().replaceAllText('{{Issue2}}',Issue2);
    }); 
   presLength = slides.length; 
   newSlide.move(presLength); 
  } // end our conditional statement
  }); //close our loop of values

//Remove the template slide
templateSlide.remove();
  
} ```

JPV JPV · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-23T09:05:29

Try changing

var values = sheet.getRange('A3:R').getValues();

to

var values = sheet.getRange('A3:R').getDisplayValues();

and see if that helps?

More info on getDisplayValues.

Convert date to dd/mm/yyyy during injection of data from google sheets to google slides using google apps script

1 Answers