# Google Slides API with LLM Generation
---

You may read a formatted version of this writing here: [Using AI to Automate Google Slides Presentation](https://alyssaglasco.com/articles/using-ai-to-automate-google-slides-presentation)

---
A [project](https://app.magicschool.ai/tools/presentation-generator) I recently completed was in using a large language model's response to automate the generation of Google Slides/Presentations. Overall, the concept is quite simple. However, there were a few pain points worthy of discussion. Largely, within the structure of the [Google Slides API](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@googleapis/slides). For what it's worth, in this project, I was working in TypeScript.

## Open AI's Structured Outputs
The LLM was prompted to return a text response in Markdown which would include a title, subtitle, and would designate between each slide as Slide 1:, Slide 1:, etc. This allowed for expected delimiters when later parsing this output into the request for the API to Google Slides. I highly recommend looking into [OpenAI's Structured Outputs](https://openai.com/index/introducing-structured-outputs-in-the-api/) in the API for reliable JSON schemas.

## Google Slides API: Create Request
The Google Slides API requires you to first, send in a create request to create a blank presentation. Within that request you'll configure the title of the presentation. Within the blank presentation created, you will also have a Title slide included by default. This blank presentation will be assigned to whichever user is authorized via the google SSO process prior to the Slides API being hit.

---
```typescript
requestBody: {
  title: presentation.title,
}
```
---

## Google Slides API: Get Request
Now, once the presentation is created, the API will respond with the Id of the newly created presentation. Within the response object, this can be found in response.data.presentationId. Now that you have the presentation Id, you can use the get request within the Slides API to query for the Title Slide's object Ids.

---
```typescript
const presentationData = await slides.presentations.get({
    presentationId,
});
```
---

## Google Slides API: Get Response
The reason you'll need the presentation information from the get request due to your need to configure the text values for the title and subtitle objects within your default Title Slide. To accomplish this, you'll receive the following object structure as a response to your get request:

---
```typescript
{
  ...,
  "data": {
    "presentationId": "<ID>",
    "pageSize": { "width": [Object], "height": [Object] },
    "slides": [ [Object] ],
    "title": "<TITLE>",
    "masters": [ [Object] ],
    "layouts": [
      [Object], [Object],
      [Object], [Object],
      [Object], [Object],
      [Object], [Object],
      [Object], [Object],
      [Object]
    ],
    "locale": "en",
    "revisionId": "g2FG59YEHdLUmQ",
    "notesMaster": {
      "objectId": "n",
      "pageType": "NOTES_MASTER",
      "pageElements": [Array],
      "pageProperties": [Object]
    }
  },
  ...
}
```
---

So, within this object structure, you'll want to retrieve the titleObjectID, which is the objectID of the title text box in your title slide and the subtitleObjectId, which is the objectID of the subtitle text box in your title slide. In order to update the text in either, you'll need to explicitly select these two objects by ObjectId. These values are randomly generated when they are not explicitly created via API call and configured by your request. Since this slide was generated by default through your create request, the objectID is randomly generated.

In order to update the text from your structured JSON into the title and subtitle objects of your title slide, you'll need to traverse the GET response for the ObjectIds similar to this example below:

---
```typescript
const myTitleSlide = data.slides?.[0];

if (titleSlide?.pageElements) {
  for (const pageEl of titleSlide.pageElements) {
    if (pageEl.shape?.placeholder?.type === 'CENTERED_TITLE') {
      titleObjId = pageEl.objectId;
    } else if (pageEl.shape?.placeholder?.type === 'SUBTITLE') {
      subtitleObjId = pageEl.objectId;
    }
  }
}
```
---

## Google Slides: batchUpdate Request
Once you have the objectIds for both the title and subtitle of your title slide, you can construct your batchUpdate request to update the presentation with the title, subtitle, and subsequent slides. In your constructor, you can reference the following structures in how I managed building my request:

### Slide Create Requests:

---
```typescript
[
  {
    slideLayoutReference: {
      predefinedLayout: 'TITLE_AND_BODY',
    },
    placeholderIdMappings: [
      {
        layoutPlaceholder: {
          type: 'TITLE',
          index: 0,
        },
        objectId: `title_${index}`,
      },
      {
        layoutPlaceholder: {
          type: 'BODY',
          index: 0,
        },
        objectId: `body_${index}`,
      },
    ],
  },
  {
    insertText: {
      objectId: `title_${index}`,
      text: slide.title,
    },
  },
  {
    insertText: {
      objectId: `body_${index}`,
      text: slide.content,
    },
  },
];
```
---

## Takeaways
The biggest takeaway from this project was the fact that the Google APIs aren't very well documented and are architecturally complex. However, that's understandable when it comes to the fact that these APIs need to be quite extensible for many use cases. However, with that in mind, I strongly recommend traversing the response object structures within your own work with the API in order to detangle any information you may need. Another takeaway is that when formatting these slides, you'll need to consider the fact that you will need to leaf through their API documentation for each possible format, and apply the indicated request. For instance, if you'd like bullet formatting but not for every single test item in your slide content, you'll need to apply a textRange.type of 'FIXED_RANGE' and provision a startIndex along with an endIndex.

Using AI to Automate Google Slides/Presentations

I created Story Sphere while trying to think of new ways to get myself to share my writing, to write more, and to feel compelled to do so. In many ways, motivation is generally the issue that myself and others like me find as being their brick wall. How can we grow if we aren't exercising our abilities? How can we know where to grow if we cannot get the feedback of others?

This project is in its infant stages. However, I'm quite proud of this little baby.

Features soon to come:

- Tagging System
- Comment System
- Social Media Share Feature
- Markdown Reference (this app uses markdown)

<3 Alyce

![alt](https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/story-sphere-a503c.appspot.com/o/uploads%2F6ZIPJTq7IEY4wR3Wl533nIwlgFF2%2F1719873022265.gif?alt=media&token=a19b5db7-1076-4867-8efa-106f0b1b1e81)

Aly Glasco

Using AI to Automate Google Slides/Presentations

Why Storysphere