How to get user selected text in a Google Doc?

[David Handel]

Hi Guys,

The getSelection() method can be used to return the user selected text but is restricted to bound scripts. Is there a method for doing the same for standalone scripts that can then be used in a published add-on? If there is a solution, will it work when Docs changes rendering to canvas?

Cheers!

[Clark Lind]

Unless you are interacting with the underlying html framework at the browser level (e.g., a browser addon like Grammarly), switching to Canvas should be transparent to everyone. As for a published addon, once installed, shouldn't it act like a bound script? (I don't know... so asking the dumb question... lol).

[Clark Lind]

I ask since this quickstart shows user-selected text: https://developers.google.com/workspace/add-ons/editors/docs/quickstart/translate

[Clark Lind]

Nevermind, it is a bound script!  Doh!  Sorry.

[Ed Bacher]

The example uses DocumentApp.getActiveDocument(), which works for a bound document, but you may be able to use DocumentApp.openByUrl() from a standalone script.

I do this in my Docs to Markdown add-on, which exists as a bound script, but is now published as an add-on. It has code to use the openByUrl() function, but in practice it using just uses getActiveDocument since an add-on acts like a bound script. You can see the selection handling in this part of the source. It's a little bit different from what they're doing in the translation example, but it works well for partial selections.

[David Handel]

Thanks, Ed! You have been very helpful.

Cheers,

David

[Hyun A Kim]

Hi, it's rather late but how did you handle the problem of DocumentApp.openByUrl() opening a document in a different tab? I couldn't figure out the problem :(

[cwl...@gmail.com]

Not sure if it can be done since the script is not bound:

(https://developers.google.com/apps-script/reference/document/document#getselection)

Gets the user's selection in the active document. A script can only access the selection of the user who is running the script, and only if the script is bound to the document.

[Ed Bacher]

Yes, I think that's correct: an add-on is effectively a container-bound script (since the user installed it and gave the script access to Drive documents). So, that code I have for DocumentApp.openByUrl() is probably unnecessary (unless you make a standalone script and feed it a document URL). I may try to get rid of that code to avoid any confusion (but will test it out before releasing any change -- the code works well as-is).

There's some more information about container-bound scripts here: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/guides/bound. It's not crystal clear, but add-ons seem to be effectively container-bound.

Ed

[Hyun A Kim]

Thank you so much for your reply!