Extending Google Slides

AI-generated Key Takeaways

• Google Apps Script enables programmatic creation and modification of Google Slides presentations.

• Apps Script allows customization of Google Slides through custom menus, dialogs, and sidebars, and integration with other Google services.

• Scripts can be bound to a presentation for direct access to the Slides user interface or used independently with appropriate permissions.

• Apps Script projects can be packaged and published as add-ons, extending Google Slides functionality for other users.

Google Apps Script lets you programmatically create and modify Google Slides presentations using the Slides service. You can use Apps Script to add custom menus, dialogs, and sidebars to Slides. You can also integrate Slides with other Google services like Calendar, Drive, and Gmail.

Note: The Slides service is the recommended way of working with Google Slides in Apps Script. You can also enable the Slides advanced service if you need to invoke the Slides API directly.

Get started

Apps Script includes a built-in service that lets you programmatically create, read, and edit Google Slides. Apps Script can interact with Google Slides in two ways:

1. Any script can create a new presentation or access an existing presentation if the user has the appropriate access permissions for that presentation.
2. A script can be bound to a presentation, which provides the script more direct access to the Slides user interface for that script. To create a bound script, select Extensions > Apps Script from within Google Slides.

Custom menus and user interfaces

You can customize Google Slides by adding custom menus, dialog boxes, and sidebars. To learn the basics of creating menus, see the guide to menus. To learn about customizing the content of a dialog box, see the guide to HTML service.

If you're planning to publish your custom interface as part of an add-on, follow the style guide for consistency with the style and layout of the Google Slides editor.

add-ons for Google Slides

add-ons are specially packaged Apps Script projects that run inside Google Slides and can be installed from the Google Slides add-on store. If you've developed a script for Google Slides and want to share it with the world, Apps Script lets you publish your script as an add-on so other users can install it from the add-on store.

See the sample translate add-on or sample progress bar add-on for examples of Slides add-ons.