clear()

Clears the contents of the element.

Return

EquationFunction — the current element

copy()

Returns a detached, deep copy of the current element.

Any child elements present in the element are also copied. The new element will not have a parent.

Return

EquationFunction — the new copy

editAsText()

Obtains a Text version of the current element, for editing.

Use editAsText for manipulating the elements contents as rich text. The editAsText mode ignores non-text elements (such as InlineImage and HorizontalRule).

Child elements fully contained within a deleted text range are removed from the element.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Insert two paragraphs separated by a paragraph containing an
 // horizontal rule.
 body.insertParagraph(0, "An editAsText sample.");
 body.insertHorizontalRule(0);
 body.insertParagraph(0, "An example.");

 // Delete " sample.\n\n An" removing the horizontal rule in the process.
 body.editAsText().deleteText(14, 25);
 

Return

Text — a text version of the current element

findElement(elementType)

Searches the contents of the element for a descendant of the specified type.

Parameters

Return

RangeElement — a search result indicating the position of the search element

findElement(elementType, from)

Searches the contents of the element for a descendant of the specified type, starting from the specified RangeElement.

 
// Get the body section of the active document.
 var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Define the search parameters.
 var searchType = DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH;
 var searchHeading = DocumentApp.ParagraphHeading.HEADING1;
 var searchResult = null;

 // Search until the paragraph is found.
 while (searchResult = body.findElement(searchType, searchResult)) {
   var par = searchResult.getElement().asParagraph();
   if (par.getHeading() == searchHeading) {
     // Found one, update and stop.
     par.setText('This is the first header.');
     return;
   }
 }
 

Parameters

Return

RangeElement — a search result indicating the next position of the search element

findText(searchPattern)

Searches the contents of the element for the specified text pattern using regular expressions.

A subset of the JavaScript regular expression features are not fully supported, such as capture groups and mode modifiers.

The provided regular expression pattern is independently matched against each text block contained in the current element.

Parameters

Return

RangeElement — a search result indicating the position of the search text, or null if there is no match

findText(searchPattern, from)

Searches the contents of the element for the specified text pattern, starting from a given search result.

A subset of the JavaScript regular expression features are not fully supported, such as capture groups and mode modifiers.

The provided regular expression pattern is independently matched against each text block contained in the current element.

Parameters

Return

RangeElement — a search result indicating the next position of the search text, or null if there is no match

getAttributes()

Retrieves the element's attributes.

The result is an object containing a property for each valid element attribute where each property name corresponds to an item in the DocumentApp.Attribute enumeration.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Append a styled paragraph.
 var par = body.appendParagraph('A bold, italicized paragraph.');
 par.setBold(true);
 par.setItalic(true);

 // Retrieve the paragraph's attributes.
 var atts = par.getAttributes();

 // Log the paragraph attributes.
 for (var att in atts) {
   Logger.log(att + ":" + atts[att]);
 }
 

Return

Object — the element's attributes

getChild(childIndex)

Retrieves the child element at the specified child index.

 
// Get the body section of the active document.
 var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Obtain the first element in the document.
 var firstChild = body.getChild(0);

 // If it's a paragraph, set its contents.
 if (firstChild.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH) {
   firstChild.asParagraph().setText("This is the first paragraph.");
 }
 

Parameters

Return

Element — the child element at the specified index

getChildIndex(child)

Retrieves the child index for the specified child element.

Parameters

Return

Integer — the child index

getCode()

Retrieves the code corresponding to the equation function.

Return

String — the function code

getLinkUrl()

Retrieves the link url.

Return

String — the link url, or null if the element contains multiple values for this attribute

getNextSibling()

Retrieves the element's next sibling element.

The next sibling has the same parent and follows the current element.

Return

Element — the next sibling element

getNumChildren()

Retrieves the number of children.

 
// Get the body section of the active document.
 var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Log the number of elements in the document.
 Logger.log("There are " + body.getNumChildren() +
     " elements in the document body.");
 

Return

Integer — the number of children

getParent()

Retrieves the element's parent element.

The parent element contains the current element.

Return

ContainerElement — the parent element

getPreviousSibling()

Retrieves the element's previous sibling element.

The previous sibling has the same parent and precedes the current element.

Return

Element — the previous sibling element

getText()

Retrieves the contents of the element as a text string.

Return

String — the contents of the element as text string

getTextAlignment()

Gets the text alignment. The available types of alignment are DocumentApp.TextAlignment.NORMAL, DocumentApp.TextAlignment.SUBSCRIPT, and DocumentApp.TextAlignment.SUPERSCRIPT.

Return

TextAlignment — the type of text alignment, or null if the text contains multiple types of text alignments or if the text alignment has never been set

getType()

Retrieves the element's ElementType.

Use getType() to determine the exact type of a given element.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Obtain the first element in the document body.

 var firstChild = body.getChild(0);

 // Use getType() to determine the element's type.
 if (firstChild.getType() == DocumentApp.ElementType.PARAGRAPH) {
   Logger.log('The first element is a paragraph.');
 } else {
   Logger.log('The first element is not a paragraph.');
 }
 

Return

ElementType — the element type

isAtDocumentEnd()

Determines whether the element is at the end of the Document.

Return

Boolean — whether the element is at the end of the document

merge()

Merges the element with the preceding sibling of the same type.

Only elements of the same ElementType may be merged. Any child elements contained in the current element are moved to the preceding sibling element.

The current element is removed from the document.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Append two paragraphs to the document.
 var par1 = body.appendParagraph('Paragraph 1.');
 var par2 = body.appendParagraph('Paragraph 2.');

 // Merge the newly added paragraphs into a single paragraph.
 par2.merge();
 

Return

EquationFunction — the merged element

removeFromParent()

Removes the element from its parent.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Remove all images in the document body.
 var imgs = body.getImages();
 for (var i = 0; i < imgs.length; i++) {
   imgs[i].removeFromParent();
 }
 

Return

EquationFunction — the removed element

replaceText(searchPattern, replacement)

Replaces all occurrences of a given text pattern with a given replacement string, using regular expressions.

A subset of the JavaScript regular expression features are not fully supported, such as capture groups and mode modifiers.

The provided regular expression pattern is independently matched against each text block contained in the current element.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Clear the text surrounding "Apps Script", with or without text.
 body.replaceText("^.*Apps ?Script.*$", "Apps Script");
 

Parameters

Return

Element — the current element

setAttributes(attributes)

Sets the element's attributes.

The specified attributes parameter must be an object where each property name is an item in the DocumentApp.Attribute enumeration and each property value is the new value to be applied.

 
var body = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody();

 // Define a custom paragraph style.
 var style = {};
 style[DocumentApp.Attribute.HORIZONTAL_ALIGNMENT] =
     DocumentApp.HorizontalAlignment.RIGHT;
 style[DocumentApp.Attribute.FONT_FAMILY] =
     DocumentApp.FontFamily.CALIBRI;
 style[DocumentApp.Attribute.FONT_SIZE] = 18;
 style[DocumentApp.Attribute.BOLD] = true;

 // Append a plain paragraph.
 var par = body.appendParagraph('A paragraph with custom style.');

 // Apply the custom style.
 par.setAttributes(style);
 

Parameters

Return

EquationFunction — the current element

setLinkUrl(url)

Sets the link url.

Parameters

Return

EquationFunction — the current element

setTextAlignment(textAlignment)

Sets the text alignment. The available types of alignment are DocumentApp.TextAlignment.NORMAL, DocumentApp.TextAlignment.SUBSCRIPT, and DocumentApp.TextAlignment.SUPERSCRIPT.

 
// Make the entire first paragraph be superscript.
 var text = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody().getParagraphs()[0].editAsText();
 text.setTextAlignment(DocumentApp.TextAlignment.SUPERSCRIPT);
 

Parameters

Return

EquationFunction — the current element