Google Slides: newly inserted table not found

Question

I´m wondering what is going on. I have two functions which both are working good when called one after one:

function createTable() {
  var slidesPage = SlidesApp.openById('1QWRV4eQzGNNBz4SkR3WPurTL3O60oGYxQpBu63KrUoI').getSlides()[0];

  var table = slidesPage.insertTable(7, 4);
}


function changeColumnWidth() {

  var slidesPage = SlidesApp.openById('1QWRV4eQzGNNBz4SkR3WPurTL3O60oGYxQpBu63KrUoI').getSlides()[0];

  var tableId = slidesPage.getTables()[0].getObjectId();

  var requests = [{
    updateTableColumnProperties: {
      objectId: tableId,
      "columnIndices": [ 1, 3],
      "tableColumnProperties": {
        "columnWidth": {
          "magnitude": 80,
          "unit": "PT"
         }
       },
      "fields": "columnWidth"
     }
   }];

  var createSlideResponse = Slides.Presentations.batchUpdate({
    requests: requests
  }, '1QWRV4eQzGNNBz4SkR3WPurTL3O60oGYxQpBu63KrUoI');

}

But trying to combine these two functions like:

function combined() {
   createTable();
   changeColumnWidth();
}

I´m getting Error:

Invalid requests[0].updateTableColumnProperties: The object (SLIDES_API456304911_0) could not be found.

Wondering if the insertTable method is asynchronous and therefore the created table is not ready? Thanks for any help.

Answer 1

How about this modification? Please think of this as one of several workarounds. In my workaround, I used saveAndClose() for your situation. Using this, I thought to separate the process of SlidesApp and Slides API.

Modification points :

• Save and close the slide using saveAndClose() after the table was inserted.
• Return an object ID of inserted table to use at changeColumnWidth().
• At changeColumnWidth(), the table is modified by Slides API using the received object ID.

Modified script :

function combined() {
  var tableId = createTable(); // Modified
  changeColumnWidth(tableId); // Modified
}

function createTable() {
  var slide = SlidesApp.openById('1QWRV4eQzGNNBz4SkR3WPurTL3O60oGYxQpBu63KrUoI'); // Modified
  var slidesPage = slide.getSlides()[9]; // Modified
  var table = slidesPage.insertTable(7, 4);
  slide.saveAndClose(); // Added
  return table.getObjectId();
}

function changeColumnWidth(tableId) { // Modified
  // var slidesPage = SlidesApp.openById('1QWRV4eQzGNNBz4SkR3WPurTL3O60oGYxQpBu63KrUoI').getSlides()[0]; // This line is not used.
  // var tableId = slidesPage.getTables()[0].getObjectId(); // This line is not used because slidesPage.getTables().length becomes 0.

  var requests = [{
    updateTableColumnProperties: {
      objectId: tableId,
      "columnIndices": [ 1, 3],
      "tableColumnProperties": {
        "columnWidth": {
          "magnitude": 80,
          "unit": "PT"
         }
       },
      "fields": "columnWidth"
     }
   }];
  var createSlideResponse = Slides.Presentations.batchUpdate({
    requests: requests
  }, '1QWRV4eQzGNNBz4SkR3WPurTL3O60oGYxQpBu63KrUoI');
}

Note :

• For the slide which is saved and closed by saveAndClose(), when the slide is reopened, the inserted table cannot be retrieved. When the table is tried to be retrieved using getTables() again, the length becomes 0. But at Slides API, the object ID of table can be retrieved. So I thought that the issue might be able to be solved by returning the object ID of table after the table was inserted.
  • But I couldn't understand about the reason that the values retrieved by getTables() from the reopened Slide become "0" yet. I'm sorry.

Reference :

• saveAndClose()

If this workaround was not what you want, I'm sorry.

Answer 2

To achieve your goal - create a table with a specified layout and specific column sizes in one function - you should use the Slides API for the entire task. The Slides API lets you both create and modify the same element in the same batch request, if you provided a unique object ID for it. Otherwise, you have to first create the element, then send the modification request using the objectId found in the response to the first request. This second approach is essentially the behavior you were experiencing when the function calls were done separately.

There are restrictions on user-supplied IDs, naturally:

objectId string: A user-supplied object ID.

If you specify an ID, it must be unique among all pages and page elements in the presentation. The ID must start with an alphanumeric character or an underscore (matches regex [a-zA-Z0-9_] ); remaining characters may include those as well as a hyphen or colon (matches regex [a-zA-Z0-9_-:] ). The length of the ID must not be less than 5 or greater than 50.

If you don't specify an ID, a unique one is generated.

Given that hyphens are allowed, we can use the Utilites.getUuid() method to help supply our own unique object IDs.

When mixing SlidesApp and Slides, it is very likely that internal Google optimizations (e.g. write-caching) change the operation order. By restricting to a single service for related task operations, we can ensure that the objects we need are available when needed.

This example uses two methods that make Request objects for batchUpdate and ultimately creates a presentation, adds a blank slide, adds a table and modifies it, and then creates another blank slide.

function makeCreateTableRequest_(slideId, rows, columns, shouldSupplyID) {
  const tablerq = {
    rows: rows,
    columns: columns,
    elementProperties: {
      pageObjectId: slideId,
  /** size: {
        height: {...},
        width: {...}
      },
      transform: { ... } */
    }
  };

  // If asked to use a custom ID (e.g. also going to modify this table), use a unique one.
  if (shouldSupplyID)
    tablerq.objectId = ("table" + Utilities.getUuid()).slice(0, 50);

  return {createTable: tablerq};
}
function makeModifyTableColumnPropsRequest_(tableId, newWidthDimension, indicesArray) {
  const rq = {
    objectId: tableId,
    fields: "columnWidth" // There are no other fields for this request as of 2018-07
  };
  if (newWidthDimension && newWidthDimension.magnitude !== undefined && newWidthDimension.unit)
    rq.tableColumnProperties = { columnWidth: newWidthDimension };
  if (indicesArray && indicesArray.length)
    rq.columnIndices = indicesArray;
  return {updateTableColumnProperties: rq};
}
function createPresentation_() {
  const newPres = { title: "API-created Presentation" };
  // Presentations are huge... limit the metadata sent back to us.
  const fields = "presentationId,pageSize,title"
    + ",slides(objectId,pageType,pageElements(objectId,size,title,description))"
    + ",masters(objectId,pageType,pageElements(objectId,size,title,description))"
    + ",layouts(objectId,pageType,pageElements(objectId,size,title,description))";
  const createdMetadata = Slides.Presentations.create(newPres, {fields: fields});
  console.log({message:"Created a Presentation", response: createdMetadata});
  return createdMetadata;
}
function addSlide_(pId) {
  const response = Slides.Presentations.batchUpdate({ requests: [{ createSlide: {} }] }, pId);
  return response.replies[0].createSlide.objectId;
}

function foo() {
  const pres = createPresentation_();
  const newSlideId = addSlide_(pres.presentationId);

  // Get requests to add and to modify tables.
  const openingTableRq = makeCreateTableRequest_(pres.slides[0].objectId, 2, 4);
  const newTableRq = makeCreateTableRequest_(newSlideId, 7, 4, true);
  const changeWidthRq = makeModifyTableColumnPropsRequest_(newTableRq.createTable.objectId, {magnitude: 80, unit: "PT"}, [0]);
  // Add and update the desired table, then create a new slide.
  var response = Slides.Presentations.batchUpdate({
      requests: [
        openingTableRq, // will have reply
        newTableRq, // will have reply
        changeWidthRq, // no reply
        { createSlide: {} } // will have reply
      ]
    }, pres.presentationId);
  console.log({message: "Performed updates to the created presentation", response: response});
}