Can you run a mail merge into google slides

What a great question!

While Google Slides doesn't have a built-in mail merge feature like Microsoft PowerPoint or Word, you can still achieve a similar result using a combination of Google Sheets, Google Slides, and some creative scripting. Here's a step-by-step guide to help you run a mail merge into Google Slides:

Prerequisites:

Familiarity with Google Sheets and Google Slides.
A list of data in a Google Sheet (e.g., names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.).
A Google Slides presentation with placeholders for the data.

Step 1: Prepare your data in Google Sheets

Create a Google Sheet with your data, including headers for each column (e.g., "Name", "Address", "Phone Number", etc.). Make sure the data is organized and formatted correctly.

Step 2: Create a Google Slides template

Create a new Google Slides presentation and add placeholders for the data you want to merge. For example, you can add text boxes with the following placeholder text: {{Name}}, {{Address}}, {{Phone Number}}, etc.

Step 3: Use Google Apps Script to merge data

Create a new Google Apps Script project in your Google Sheet. In the script editor, paste the following code:

function mergeData() {
  var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet().getActiveSheet();
  var slides = SlidesApp.getActivePresentation().getSlides();
  var data = sheet.getDataRange().getValues();

  for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
    var slide = slides[i];
    var row = data[i];

    // Loop through each column and replace placeholders with data
    for (var j = 0; j < row.length; j++) {
      var placeholder = slide.getShapes()[j].getText();
      var value = row[j];

      // Replace placeholder text with data
      slide.getShapes()[j].setText(value);
    }
  }
}

This script loops through each row in your Google Sheet, then loops through each column, replacing the placeholder text in your Google Slides presentation with the corresponding data value.

Step 4: Run the script

Save the script and run it by clicking the "Run" button or pressing Ctrl+Enter (or Cmd+Enter on a Mac). The script will merge the data from your Google Sheet into your Google Slides presentation.

Tips and Variations:

To make the script more flexible, you can add conditional statements to control which slides or shapes are updated based on specific conditions (e.g., only update slides with a specific title).
You can also use Google Apps Script's PropertiesService to store and retrieve data, allowing you to reuse the script across multiple presentations.
If you have a large dataset, consider using Google Apps Script's BatchUpdate method to improve performance.

While this approach requires some scripting knowledge and setup, it allows you to achieve a mail merge-like functionality in Google Slides.

Mail Knowledge

Can you run a mail merge into google slides