How to export an individual slide from a presentation as a PDF using Google App Scripts?

Question

I have a Google Spreadsheet attached to a Form. On Form Submit, a script takes information from the submission and applies it into carefully placed textboxes in a Google Slide. There are two separate forms which are used to submit information into two separate slides on the SAME presentation.

After the information is entered, the script runs a function that is supposed to export the edited slide ONLY as a PDF and email it to an address provided on the Google Form.

I had a similar setup on a different program of mine and had someone from an online forum help me write the export PDF / Email code. The code they helped me write was for exporting and emailing an individual Spreadsheet sheet.

Here is the email code that I copied from my Spreadsheet program.

function Email3UpPDF () {
  Logger.log("Emailing!");
  var Sapp = SpreadsheetApp;
  var FS = Sapp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("3UP Submissions");
  var ssID = "10Up_PcLxVopXont9Qcu-yk-PrFGWfWPQ3ETsgys4v0Y"
  var shID = "g2580bcdba17_0_22"
  
  var Addy1 = FS.getRange("N"+FS.getLastRow()).getValue();
  
  var requestData = {"method": "GET", "headers":{"Authorization":"Bearer "+ScriptApp.getOAuthToken()}}; 
  var url = "https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/"+ ssID + "/export?format=pdf&id="+shID; //This creates the PDF export url
  var result = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url , requestData);  
  var contents = result.getContent();
  
  MailApp.sendEmail(Addy1,"Local Sign Template" ,"Here is your custom sign Template.", {attachments:[{fileName: "LST3UP.pdf", content:contents, mimeType:"application/pdf"}]});

}

My HOPE was that I could simply substitute the Spreadsheet ID with a Presentation ID, and the Sheet ID with a Slide ID. When I tried that I was met with this error:

Exception: Request failed for https://docs.google.com returned code 404. Truncated server response: <meta name="viewport" c... (use muteHttpExceptions option to examine full response)

The error points to line 13: var contents = result.getContent();

I should note that when I put JUST the Presentation ID in both the ssID and the shID variables, the program runs successfully but ends up sending a 2 page PDF with both slides on it. Which makes sense to me. My intention is to only have one slide though.

Answer 1

I'm worried that your endpoint might not be able to used for exporting the specific slide from the Google Slide as a PDF format. So, in your situation, how about the following modification?

Modified script 1:

function Email3UpPDF() {
  Logger.log("Emailing!");
  var Sapp = SpreadsheetApp;
  var FS = Sapp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("3UP Submissions");
  var Addy1 = FS.getRange("N" + FS.getLastRow()).getValue();

  var presentationId = "10Up_PcLxVopXont9Qcu-yk-PrFGWfWPQ3ETsgys4v0Y"; // File ID of Google Slide.
  var pageObjectIds = ["g2580bcdba17_0_22"]; // Page object ID of Googe Slide.
  var temp = DriveApp.getFileById(presentationId).makeCopy("temp");
  var s = SlidesApp.openById(temp.getId());
  s.getSlides().forEach(s => {
    if (!pageObjectIds.includes(s.getObjectId())) {
      s.remove();
    }
  });
  s.saveAndClose();
  var contents = temp.getBlob().getBytes();
  temp.setTrashed(true);

  MailApp.sendEmail(Addy1, "Local Sign Template", "Here is your custom sign Template.", { attachments: [{ fileName: "LST3UP.pdf", content: contents, mimeType: "application/pdf" }] });
}

• In this modification, the current Google Slide is copied as a temporal file. And, all slides except for the specific slide are removed. And, the temporal Google Slide is exported as a PDF format. I used this flow because I'm worried that your Google Slide might have a specific theme.

• In this modification, when you modify var pageObjectIds = ["g2580bcdba17_0_22"]; to var pageObjectIds = ["g2580bcdba17_0_22", "### other page ID ###",,,];, you can include several pages in a PDF file.

Modified script 2:

In this modification, the specific pages are retrieved from Google Slide and converted to a PDF format using a Javascript library of pdf-lib.

// Ref: https://gist.github.com/tanaikech/9d77f7d634d2d31914396d7dc84b79c3
async function exportSpecificPages_(fileId, pageNumbers) {
  const cdnjs = "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/pdf-lib/dist/pdf-lib.min.js";
  eval(UrlFetchApp.fetch(cdnjs).getContentText()); // Load pdf-lib
  const setTimeout = function (f, t) {
    Utilities.sleep(t);
    return f();
  }
  const blob = DriveApp.getFileById(fileId).getBlob();
  const pdfDoc = await PDFLib.PDFDocument.create();
  const pdfData = await PDFLib.PDFDocument.load(new Uint8Array(blob.getBytes()));
  const pages = await pdfDoc.copyPages(pdfData, [...Array(pdfData.getPageCount())].map((_, i) => i));
  pages.forEach((page, i) => {
    if (pageNumbers.includes(i + 1)) {
      pdfDoc.addPage(page);
    }
  });
  const bytes = await pdfDoc.save();
  return [...new Int8Array(bytes)];
}

// Please run this function.
async function Email3UpPDF() {
  Logger.log("Emailing!");
  var Sapp = SpreadsheetApp;
  var FS = Sapp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("3UP Submissions");
  var Addy1 = FS.getRange("N" + FS.getLastRow()).getValue();

  var presentationId = "10Up_PcLxVopXont9Qcu-yk-PrFGWfWPQ3ETsgys4v0Y"; // File ID of Google Slide.
  var pageObjectIds = ["g2580bcdba17_0_22"]; // Page object ID of Googe Slide.

  var pages = SlidesApp.openById(presentationId).getSlides().reduce((ar, s, i) => {
    if (pageObjectIds.includes(s.getObjectId())) {
      ar.push(i + 1);
    }
    return ar;
  }, []);
  var contents = await exportSpecificPages_(presentationId, pages);

  MailApp.sendEmail(Addy1, "Local Sign Template", "Here is your custom sign Template.", { attachments: [{ fileName: "LST3UP.pdf", content: contents, mimeType: "application/pdf" }] });
}

Note:

• I think that the above script works. But, in this case, when you directly copy and paste the Javascript retrieved from https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/pdf-lib/dist/pdf-lib.min.js to your Google Apps Script project, the process cost for loading it can be reduced.

Answer 2

Alternative Method

I have found this related post that you could utilise to work around this matter using a specific method mentioned in the post. I have tweaked your script below & performed a quick test run on my end.

Sample Tweaked Script

function extractPdfData() {
  Logger.log("Emailing!");

  //Replace this with your API key, this is my temporary limited 'api key' for testing purposes.
  const apiSecret = 'ZQ2A9pbkh6w3xuBY'; 
  var Sapp = SpreadsheetApp;
  var FS = Sapp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getSheetByName("3UP Submissions");
  var ssID = '10Up_PcLxVopXont9Qcu-yk-PrFGWfWPQ3ETsgys4v0Y';

  //define the number of slide page(s) that you want. E.g. slide number '2'
  var pages = [2].join('%2C');

  var Addy1 = FS.getRange("N"+FS.getLastRow()).getValue();
  var requestData = { "method": "GET", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer " + ScriptApp.getOAuthToken() } };
  var pdfUrl = "https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/" + ssID + "/export?format=pdf";
  var slidePDF = UrlFetchApp.fetch(pdfUrl, requestData).getBlob();

  //Retrieve the number of PDF page(s) you only want to attach on your email.
  var pdfPages = processPDF(apiSecret, pages, slidePDF);

  //Send the page(s) in your email
  pdfPages.forEach(page => MailApp.sendEmail(Addy1,"Local Sign Template" ,"Here is your custom sign Template.", {attachments:[{fileName: "LST3UP.pdf", content:UrlFetchApp.fetch(page.Url).getContent(), mimeType:"application/pdf"}]}));
}

//Utilizing the 'convertapi' method
processPDF(apiSecret, pages, slidePDF) {
  var url = `https://v2.convertapi.com/convert/pdf/to/split?Secret=${apiSecret}&ExtractPages=${pages}&StoreFile=true`;
  var options = {
    method: "post",
    payload: { File: slidePDF },
  }
  var res = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, options);
  var rawData = JSON.parse(res.getContentText());

  return rawData.Files;
}

Demo

Dummy Slide.
E.g. you want the slide number 2 to be the only PDF file sent to your recipient.

After running the script.
My dummy email account received this email:

The whole PDF attachment is only the slide number 2: