Google Docs Script To Convert Selection To Hyperlink

Question

I'm new to Google Apps Script and have only done a little JS in the past.

I feel like this should be simple, but can't find an answer – maybe it's too obvious!

I would like users to be able to select text, in this case a name, in the document. The script would then turn this selected text into a link.

E.g. Highlight 'John Smith' in the document This becomes a hyperlink with the url as 'https://naming.com/john-smith'

I previously had this working as an MS Word Macro and would like to convert to Google:

Sub LinkName()
Dim Name As String

With Selection

.MoveStartWhile Cset:=" ", Count:=wdForward
.MoveEndWhile Cset:=Chr(13), Count:=wdBackward
.MoveEndWhile Cset:=" ", Count:=wdBackward

End With

Name = LCase(Selection.Text)
Name = Replace(Name, " ", "-")
If Name = "jonny-smith" Then Name = "john-smith"
If Name = "johnathan-smith" Then Name = "john-smith"

ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Selection.Range, _
 Address:="https://naming.com/" & Name
 
End Sub

Unfortunately, I can't even get the following to work before starting to look at how to convert the selected text to a slug as a variable!

function linkName () {
 
DocumentApp.getActiveDocument()
.getSelection()
.editAsText()
.setLinkUrl(0,0,"https://naming.com/john-smith");

DocumentApp.getUi().alert("Link added")

}

Any help would be much appreciated!

Cheers

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 07 '22 at 11:15

Basically it can be done this way:

function linkName() {

  var selection = DocumentApp
    .getActiveDocument()
    .getSelection()
    .getRangeElements()[0];

  var start = selection.getStartOffset();
  var end   = selection.getEndOffsetInclusive();
  var url   = 'https://naming.com/john-smith';

  selection
    .getElement()
    .editAsText()
    .setLinkUrl(start, end, url);

  DocumentApp.getUi().alert("Link added");
}

But there is another question: how do you suppose to run this script? It's not exactly most convenient way to run it from Script Editor, I think. Probably it's need to add the function to the custom menu or something.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 07 '22 at 15:25

Thanks to @Yuri, I got to where I needed to be!

Below is the code, which also borrows from here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16639331/get-user-selected-text

and from here: https://gist.github.com/codeguy/6684588

    function onOpen() {
  DocumentApp.getUi().createMenu('Names')
    .addItem("Link Athlete", 'linkName' )
    .addToUi();
}

function linkName () {
 

  var selection = DocumentApp
    .getActiveDocument()
    .getSelection()
    .getRangeElements()[0];

  var start = selection.getStartOffset();
  var end   = selection.getEndOffsetInclusive();

var elements = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getSelection().getSelectedElements();
if(elements.length > 1){
}
else {
var element = elements[0].getElement();
      var startOffset = elements[0].getStartOffset();      // -1 if whole element
      var endOffset = elements[0].getEndOffsetInclusive(); // -1 if whole element
      var selectedText = element.asText().getText();       // All text from element
      // Is only part of the element selected?
      if (elements[0].isPartial())
        selectedText = selectedText.substring(startOffset,endOffset+1);

      // Google Doc UI "word selection" (double click)
      // selects trailing spaces - trim them
      selectedText = selectedText.trim();
      endOffset = startOffset + selectedText.length - 1;

selectedText = selectedText
    .toString()                           // Cast to string (optional)
    .normalize('NFKD')            // The normalize() using NFKD method returns the Unicode Normalization Form of a given string.
    .toLowerCase()                  // Convert the string to lowercase letters
    .trim()                                  // Remove whitespace from both sides of a string (optional)
    .replace(/\s+/g, '-')            // Replace spaces with -
    .replace(/[^\w\-]+/g, '')     // Remove all non-word chars
    .replace(/\-\-+/g, '-');        // Replace multiple - with single -

}

if (selectedText == "jonny-smith") {
selectedText = "john-smith"
}
if (selectedText == "johnathan-smith") {
selectedText = "john-smith"
}


  var url   = 'https://naming.com/' + selectedText;

  selection
    .getElement()
    .editAsText()
    .setLinkUrl(start, end, url);

/*
  DocumentApp.getUi().alert("Link added");
  DocumentApp.getUi().alert(selectedText);
  */
}

I'm sure there are cleaner ways, but it's working!

Google Docs Script To Convert Selection To Hyperlink

2 Answers2