How to MODIFY a Google Docs document via API using search-and-replace?

Question

I need an example of how to modify an existing document with existing text in Google Docs via API. The documentation only shows how to insert and delete text, but not how to update. Have been looking frantically on the web to find examples or a direction on how to do it but without luck.

TheStoryCoder · Accepted Answer · 2020-03-23 08:27:33Z

Finally figured it out myself.

First, follow this video to prepare authentication to the Google Docs API (even though it's about Google Sheets but the process is basically the same). Basically it consists of these steps:

create project in Google Developer Console
enable Google Docs API
create credentials, including a service account for programmatic access
share your document with the service account client email address
install Google API's PHP client: composer require google/apiclient

Then create a script like the following:

require_once(__DIR__ .'/vendor/autoload.php');
$client = new \Google_Client();
$client->setApplicationName('Some name');  //this name doesn't matter
$client->setScopes([\Google_Service_Docs::DOCUMENTS]);
$client->setAccessType('offline');
$client->setAuthConfig(__DIR__ .'/googleapi-credentials.json');  //see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZyuszEkxI for how to create this file
$service = new \Google_Service_Docs($client);

$documentId = 'YOUR-DOCUMENT-ID-GOES-HERE';  //set your document ID here, eg. "j4i1m57GDYthXKqlGce9WKs4tpiFvzl1FXKmNRsTAAlH"
$doc = $service->documents->get($documentId);

// Collect all pieces of text (see https://developers.google.com/docs/api/concepts/structure to understand the structure)
$allText = [];
foreach ($doc->body->content as $structuralElement) {
    if ($structuralElement->paragraph) {
        foreach ($structuralElement->paragraph->elements as $paragraphElement) {
            if ($paragraphElement->textRun) {
                $allText[] = $paragraphElement->textRun->content;
            }
        }
    }
}

// Go through and create search/replace requests
$requests = $textsAlreadyDone = $forEasyCompare = [];
foreach ($allText as $currText) {
    if (in_array($currText, $textsAlreadyDone, true)) {
        // If two identical pieces of text are found only search-and-replace it once - no reason to do it multiple times
        continue;
    }

    if (preg_match_all("/(.*?)(dogs)(.*?)/", $currText, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER)) {
        //NOTE: for simple static text searching you could of course just use strpos()
        // - and then loop on $matches wouldn't be necessary, and str_replace() would be simplified
        $modifiedText = $currText;
        foreach ($matches as $match) {
            $modifiedText = str_replace($match[0], $match[1] .'cats'. $match[3], $modifiedText);
        }

        $forEasyCompare[] = ['old' => $currText, 'new' => $modifiedText];

        $replaceAllTextRequest = [
            'replaceAllText' => [
                'replaceText' => $modifiedText,
                'containsText' => [
                    'text' => $currText,
                    'matchCase' => true,
                ],
            ],
        ];

        $requests[] = new \Google_Service_Docs_Request($replaceAllTextRequest);
    }
    $textsAlreadyDone[] = $currText;
}

// you could dump out $forEasyCompare to see the changes that would be made

$batchUpdateRequest = new \Google_Service_Docs_BatchUpdateDocumentRequest(['requests' => $requests]);
$response = $service->documents->batchUpdate($documentId, $batchUpdateRequest);

Sarke · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-10 08:37:22Z

2

This is my way - easy one

public function replaceText($search, $replace)
{
    $client = $this->getClient();
    $service = new \Google_Service_Docs($client);
    $documentId = ''; // Put your document ID here


    $e = new \Google_Service_Docs_SubstringMatchCriteria();
    $e->text = "{{".$search."}}";
    $e->setMatchCase(false);


    $requests[] = new \Google_Service_Docs_Request(array(
        'replaceAllText' => array(
            'replaceText' => $replace,
            'containsText' => $e
        ),
    ));

    $batchUpdateRequest = new \Google_Service_Docs_BatchUpdateDocumentRequest(array(
        'requests' => $requests
    ));

    $response = $service->documents->batchUpdate($documentId, $batchUpdateRequest);
}

edited May 10, 2022 at 8:37

Sarke

3,3252 gold badges21 silver badges32 bronze badges

answered Apr 8, 2021 at 14:01

Condesign

492 bronze badges

1 Comment

Richard Frank Over a year ago

Works perfectly and across complex items like tables (unlike the accepted answer)

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