How to insert a rendered HTML template into a Google Doc using Python

I am facing a challenge to programmatically insert an html template into a google doc using python. I know there is no native/built-in functionality in google docs editor or google docs api that can solve my problem, but I tried some tricks to achieve my goal. Here we are ignoring "where" in the document we should insert, for now just successful insertion is enough.

My method is:

1. Upload the html file in google drive with the name application/vnd.google-apps.document, because google docs will automatically convert html to document. (Not perfect, but effective)
2. Use google docs api get() to get the file content (google docs json format).
3. Use google docs batchupdate() to update the new content on the target file.

def insert_template_to_file(target_file_id, content):
    media = MediaIoBaseUpload(BytesIO(content.encode('utf-8')), mimetype='text/html', resumable=True)
    body = {
        'name': 'document_test_html',
        'mimeType': 'application/vnd.google-apps.document',
        'parents': [DOC_FOLDER_ID]
    }

    try:
        # Create HTML as docs because it automatically convert html to docs
        content_file = driver_service.files().create(body=body, media_body=media).execute()
        content_file_id = content_file.get('id')

        # Collect html content from Google Docs after created
        doc = docs_service.documents().get(documentId=content_file_id, fields='body').execute()
        request_content = doc.get('body').get('content')

        # Insert the content from html to target file
        result = docs_service.documents().batchUpdate(documentId=target_file_id, body={'requests': request_content}).execute()
        print(result)

        # Delete html docs
        driver_service.files().delete(fileId=content_file_id).execute()
        print("Content inserted successfuly")
    except HttpError as error:
        # Delete html docs even if failed
        driver_service.files().delete(fileId=content_file_id).execute()
        print(f"An error occurred: {error}")

The problem is: What I gathered from step 2 does not match what batchupdate() requires. I'm trying to adjust things in step 2 to match step 3, but haven't been successful yet.

Target solution: Get the string with the html code, Insert the rendered html into the target file on google docs. The goal is to append the existing content of the target file to the html, not overwrite it.

Does my approach make sense? Do you have any other ideas to achieve my goal?

Correct answer

I believe your goals are as follows.

• You want to append html data to a google doc by rendering the html.
• You want to use googleapis for python to achieve this.

Unfortunately, at this stage, the json object retrieved by "method:documents.get" does not seem to be directly used as the request body of "method:documents.batchupdate".

However, if you want to append html to an existing google doc, I think you can do it just using the drive api. How about the example script below when this is reflected in the example script?

Sample script:

def insert_template_to_file(target_file_id, content):
    request = drive_service.files().export(fileId=target_file_id, mimeType="text/html")
    file = BytesIO()
    downloader = MediaIoBaseDownload(file, request)
    done = False
    while done is False:
        status, done = downloader.next_chunk()
        print("Download %d%%" % int(status.progress() * 100))
    file.seek(0)
    current_html = file.read()

    media = MediaIoBaseUpload(BytesIO(current_html + content.encode('utf-8')), mimetype='text/html', resumable=True)
    body = {'mimeType': 'application/vnd.google-apps.document'}

    try:
        result = drive_service.files().update(fileId=target_file_id, body=body, media_body=media).execute()
        print(result)
        print("Content inserted successfuly")
    except HttpError as error:
        print(f"An error occurred: {error}")

• In this modified script, the html data is retrieved from the existing google document and the new html is appended to the retrieved html. Also, google docs are updated with updated html. In your case the raw data seems to be html. So I think this method may work.

Notice:

• This script will overwrite the google document of target_file_id. So when you test this script, I recommend you use the sample google docs.

references:

• Method: files.export李>
• Method: files.update of drive api v3一个>

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