Create Pseudo Slides from Google Form Submissions
Have you ever wanted to trigger a script on a Google Sheet of Google Form responses that would create a Google Slide containing the submitted information? Try this.
I recently shared a hack that made Google Slides act as a pseudo Google Doc so YouTube videos could be embedded. This post gives Google Docs the chance to fill a need not available in Google Slides – the creation of a new “slide” using autoCrat after a Google Form submission is received.
Let’s say I have a Google Form (inspired by Tom Barrett’s Interesting Ways series) that I ask my PLN use to crowdsource interesting ways to use Google Docs in the classroom. That form currently looks something like this (feel free to make a submission):
I would love to be able to trigger a script on the Google Sheet of form responses that would create a Google Slide containing the submitted information. Ideally, it would be a slide appended to an already existing Google Slide presentation. Unfortunately, that is not currently possible.
Yes, I know I could follow the same process Tom did by just making the actual Google Slides file freely editable by anyone but I’d rather have a bit more control and avoid digital vandalism.
Here is my hacked workflow.
When someone submits the Google Form above, the information is sent to a Google Sheet. I could have chosen to have autoCrat run on submission but, dreading spammy submissions, I am going to run the script manually after I review submissions. When I do run the merge script, autoCrat uses this Google Doc (see screenshot below) as the template for the merge. It has been formatted to look like a Google Slide (explained later in this post).
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The resulting autoCrat merge looks like this:
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If a URL to an image is provided in the submitted data, I will probably grab that image and slip it into the document but, for now, that’s the only way an image will get in.
Here is a comparison of what a similar Google Slide would like.
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It’s not perfect but it helps.
FYI: The Google Doc is set to a landscape orientation with all four margins decreased to 0.3 inches. I chose the Executive setting for paper size as it most closely resembled the slide size.
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If you are interested, here is an embedded Google Drive folder containing any of the merged documents I have reviewed and published.
I expect that, after reviewing, adding images, I will be converting these Docs to PDF so I can combine the PDFs into one document.
What ideas do you have for making this hack more efficient? I would love to hear them! Share in the comments below.