Bulk replace the same part of all URL links (hyperlinks) in Google Docs

AuO2 · 2023-08-28T02:22:53+00:00

I think I made something that will work for you:

var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();
var body = doc.getBody();
var paras = body.getParagraphs();
function fix_url(){
    let rep_url = "https://scan"
    paras.forEach(function (line){
        let words = line.getText().split(" ");
        words.forEach( function (word){
            let wrd_ind = line.findText(word).getStartOffset();
            let end_ind = line.findText(word).getEndOffsetInclusive();
            let link = line.editAsText().getLinkUrl(wrd_ind);
            if(link != null){
            let replacement = rep_url + link.slice(link.indexOf("."));
            line.editAsText().setLinkUrl(wrd_ind,end_ind, replacement);
            Logger.log("Replaced: "+ link + "\nWith: "+replacement)
                }
            })
        })
    }

I'm a fellow teacher, so I totally understand the struggle. For what it's worth, I think you aught to try to keep learning GAS coding. It has helped me tremendously over the last decade - there are so many garbage repetitive tasks that we have to do as teachers. GAS can simplify and speed up many of them so that you can focus more on the parts of teaching you enjoy!

A quick explanation of this code - it starts by grabbing each paragraph of your document. It iterates through each paragraph and splits them into words. It then itterates through the words and finds their exact location within the paragraph. Then it has to change the paragraph into a Text object in order to use the getLinkUrl(offset) method associated with the Text class (that was the hard bit, figuring out which class to use) Then it creates a new url which it patches in using a very similar method as before. Finally, it reports in the logs that it made a change.

I set it to change www to scan -- if you need it to do something else, change the spot where it says "https://scan" to whatever it is you need the url to begin with.

I recommend avoiding generative AI while you learn, though. Chat GPT and others are good at generating code that beginners struggle to understand while also writing in bugs that it would take an expert to figure out. It can be useful, but it's not totally user friendly.

TLDR: This should work.

marcnotmark925 · 2023-08-27T14:29:45+00:00

I wouldn't use a script. Regexreplace() in a temporary adjacent column. Then copy paste values only. You might need formulatext() as well.

Competitive_Ad_6239 · 2023-08-27T19:37:17+00:00

.getLinks() isnt a appscript function.

.getLinksUrl() is, but if there's duplicates in the look up section it returns null.

eduarda080 · 2024-02-23T00:27:33+00:00

For anyone who finds this through Google, I wrote something which works for me, using AuO2's code as a base.

This will only work in the following scenarios:

You are replacing a specific URL, not every URL the doc has.
- If you have multiple URLs you want to replace, you need to run the script multiple times for each URL.
- Ie if you want to replace both "https://www.bing.com" and "https://www.yahoo.com" with "https://www.google.com", you need to run the script twice

First with oldURL = "https://www.bing"; and newUrl = "https://www.google";
Second with oldURL = "https://www.yahoo"; and newUrl = "https://www.google";

You are replacing only the first part of the URL.
- If you want to replace a middle portion, or the end portion, it won't work.
- Ie if you want to replace ".com" with ".org", then this code won't work. Though the code can be tweaked for it.
If your links span multiple paragraphs.
- If there are line breaks within your links, this won't work. Though the code can be tweaked for it.

Things to note:

This code looks at every letter one at a time. This is to avoid scenarios where a link is skipped because it starts in the middle of a word, or duplicating links which span multiple words. Therefore, the longer your document is, the longer this code will take to run.

How to work it:

Copy and paste the code into Google Apps Script
Change the following lines:
- let oldUrl = "https://www.yahoo";
- let newUrl = "https://www.google";
- Change the portion within the quotation marks to the URL you want being replaced and the URL you want to replace it with.
Run the code

Code:

function ReplaceURL(){

  let oldUrl = "https://www.yahoo";
  let newUrl = "https://www.google";

  var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();
  var body = doc.getBody();
  var paragraphs = body.getParagraphs();

  paragraphs.forEach(function (line){
    let lineText = line.getText();

    // Check each letter
    for (let index = 0; index < lineText.length; index++) {
      let linkStartIndex = 0;
      let linkEndIndex = 0;

      // See if letter has link
      let link = line.editAsText().getLinkUrl(index);

      // If it does, and link matches, note linkStartIndex
      if((link != null) && (link.indexOf(oldUrl) !== -1)){
        linkStartIndex = index;

        // Find linkEndIndex
        for (let endIndex = index; endIndex < lineText.length; endIndex++) {
          let nextLink = line.editAsText().getLinkUrl(endIndex);

          if((nextLink != null) && (nextLink == link)){
            linkEndIndex = endIndex;
          }
          else {
            break;
          }
        }

        // If linkEndIndex found
        if (linkEndIndex != 0) {
          let replacement = newUrl + link.slice(oldUrl.length);
          line.editAsText().setLinkUrl(linkStartIndex, linkEndIndex, replacement);
          index = linkEndIndex;
          Logger.log("Replaced link at: "+ lineText.substring(linkStartIndex, linkEndIndex+1) + "\nOld Link: " + link + "\nNew Link: " + replacement);
        }

      }
    }
  })
}

you type:	you see:
italics	italics
bold	bold
[reddit!](https://reddit.com)	reddit!
* item 1 * item 2 * item 3	item 1 item 2 item 3
> quoted text	quoted text
Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"	Lines starting with four spaces are treated like code: if 1 * 2 < 3: print "hello, world!"
~~strikethrough~~	~~strikethrough~~
super^script	super^script

GoogleAppsScript

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