After trying a few mail merge scripts, I decided t write my own. My merge script runs as a separate fiIt reads a template from a GDoc, reads data from a GSpreadsheet, and me
You should copy the template first using DocsList
so you start with a "complete" initial document.
var template = DocsList.getFileById(docIDs[0]);// get the template model, in this sample I had an array of possible templates, I took the first one
var newmodelName=template.substr(0,11)+'multipage'+template.substring(18);// define a new name, do what you need here...
var baseDocId = DocsList.copy(template,newmodelName).getId();// make a copy of firstelement and give it new basedocname build from the serie(to keep margins etc...)
var baseDoc = DocumentApp.openById(baseDocId);// this is the new doc to modify
then use the document class that has a direct replaceText method
EDIT : about your secondary question, here is a suggestion on how you could do. It works nicely except for inlineImage
, I'll keep looking at this. You could also make the script more universal by adding other element types...
function myFunction() {
var template = DocsList.getFileById(key);// get the template model
var newmodelName='testcopy';// define a new name, do what you need here...
var baseDocId = DocsList.copy(template,newmodelName).getId();// make a copy of firstelement and give it new basedocname build from the serie(to keep margins etc...)
var baseDoc = DocumentApp.openById(baseDocId);// this is the new doc to modify
var body = baseDoc.getActiveSection();
body.appendPageBreak();
var totalElements = body.getNumChildren();
for( var j = 0; j < totalElements; ++j ) {
var element = body.getChild(j).copy();
var type = element.getType();
if( type == DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH )
body.appendParagraph(element);
else if( type == DocumentApp.ElementType.TABLE )
body.appendTable(element);
else if( type == DocumentApp.ElementType.LIST_ITEM )
body.appendListItem(element);
else if( type == DocumentApp.ElementType.INLINE_IMAGE )
{ var blob = body.getChild(j).asInlineImage().getBlob();
body.appendImage(blob); }
}
}
Edit 2 Thanks to @Fausto, here is a fully working version. Inline images are included in a paragraph so we had to dig one level more to get the blob...
function myFunction() {
var template = DocsList.getFileById(key);// get the template model
var newmodelName='testcopy';// define a new name, do what you need here...
var baseDocId = DocsList.copy(template,newmodelName).getId();// make a copy of firstelement and give it new basedocname build from the serie(to keep margins etc...)
var baseDoc = DocumentApp.openById(baseDocId);// this is the new doc to modify
var body = baseDoc.getActiveSection();
body.appendPageBreak();
var totalElements = body.getNumChildren();
for( var j = 0; j < totalElements; ++j ) {
var element = body.getChild(j).copy();
var type = element.getType();
if (type == DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH) {
if (element.asParagraph().getNumChildren() != 0 && element.asParagraph().getChild(0).getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.INLINE_IMAGE) {
var blob = element.asParagraph().getChild(0).asInlineImage().getBlob();
body.appendImage(blob);
}
else body.appendParagraph(element.asParagraph());
}
else if( type == DocumentApp.ElementType.TABLE )
body.appendTable(element);
else if( type == DocumentApp.ElementType.LIST_ITEM )
body.appendListItem(element);
}
}