Google Docs

Create, retrieve, and update Google Docs documents with full batchUpdate support.

Overview

Google Docs tool provides access to the Google Docs API (v1) and Google Drive API (v3). Three operations on the “document” resource: create (POST Drive API /files with mimeType=application/vnd.google-apps.document, optional folderId and driveId); get (GET Docs API /documents/{id}, with simple=true extracting plain text from body.content paragraphs, or simple=false returning raw JSON); update (POST Docs API /documents/{id}:batchUpdate with a fixedCollection of actions that build requests for text/insert, text/replaceAll, header/create, header/delete, footer/create, footer/delete, namedRange/create, namedRange/delete, pageBreak/insert, paragraphBullets/create, paragraphBullets/delete, positionedObject/delete, table/insert, tableColumn/insert, tableColumn/delete, tableRow/insert, tableRow/delete, with optional writeControl targetRevisionId or requiredRevisionId). Authentication via OAuth2 (googleDocsOAuth2Api) or Service Account (googleApi). Document ID can be extracted from a full Google Docs URL or passed directly as a raw ID.

Category: Productivity
Tool Name: google_docs
Version: 1

Appearance: Icon: lucide-FileText | Color: #4285F4

Node Type

Action — processes input items and produces output

Input / Output

Direction	Port(s)
Input	Input
Output	Output, Error

Credentials

This tool supports two authentication methods — Google Docs OAuth2 and Google API (Service Account). Configure one of them and select the matching value in the Authentication parameter. See the Credentials Guide for setup instructions.

Resources

Resource	Value
Document	document

Operations

Operation	Value	Description
Create	create	Create a new Google Docs document.
Get	get	Get a document by ID or URL.
Update	update	Update a document using batchUpdate with one or more actions.

Parameters

Document: Create (create)

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Title	string	Yes	—	The title of the document to create. Supports expressions like {{ $json.title }}.
Folder ID	string	No	—	ID of the Google Drive folder in which to create the document. Leave empty to create in the root of My Drive.
Drive ID	string	No	—	ID of a Shared Drive. If provided, supportsAllDrives=true is added to the request to support shared drives.

Document: Get (get)

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Document URL or ID	string	Yes	—	The full Google Docs URL or just the document ID. The ID is extracted from the URL pattern /d/{DOCUMENT_ID}/. Supports expressions.
Simplify	boolean	No	true	For get: return extracted plain text ({ documentId, content }) instead of raw JSON. For update: return the first non-empty reply from replies[] instead of the full batchUpdate response.

Document: Update (update)

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Document URL or ID	string	Yes	—	The full Google Docs URL or just the document ID. The ID is extracted from the URL pattern /d/{DOCUMENT_ID}/. Supports expressions.
Simplify	boolean	No	true	For get: return extracted plain text ({ documentId, content }) instead of raw JSON. For update: return the first non-empty reply from replies[] instead of the full batchUpdate response.
Actions	fixedCollection	No	{"actionFields":[{"object":"text","action":"insert","locationChoice":"endOfSegmentLocation","insertSegment":"body","index":0,"text":""}]}	Actions to apply to update the document. Each action corresponds to one Docs API batchUpdate request. Add as many actions as you need — they are applied in order in a single batch.
— Object	options	No	text	The document object type to act upon.
				Options: footer, header, namedRange, pageBreak, paragraphBullets, positionedObject, table, tableColumn, tableRow, text
— Action	options	No	insert	The action to perform on text. (shown when Object is text)
				Options: replaceAll (find and replace text), insert
— Action	options	No	create	The action to perform. (shown when Object is footer, header, namedRange, paragraphBullets)
				Options: create, delete
— Action	options	No	insert	The action to perform. (shown when Object is tableColumn, tableRow)
				Options: delete, insert
— Action	options	No	insert	The action to perform. (shown when Object is pageBreak, table)
				Options: insert
— Action	options	No	delete	The action to perform. (shown when Object is positionedObject)
				Options: delete
— Insert Segment	options	No	body	The document segment (body, header, or footer) where the object will be created. (shown when Object is footer, header, paragraphBullets, namedRange and Action is create)
				Options: body, footer, header
— Segment ID	string	No	—	The ID of the header, footer, or footnote segment. Retrieve from document/get (simple=false). (shown when Object is footer, header, paragraphBullets, namedRange and Action is create; hidden when Insert Segment is body)
— Index	number	No	0	The zero-based index within the segment at the section break location. (shown when Object is footer, header and Action is create)
— Name (name)	string	No	—	The name of the Named Range. Names do not need to be unique. (shown when Object is namedRange and Action is create)
— Start Index	number	No	0	The zero-based start index of this range. (shown when Object is namedRange and Action is create)
— End Index	number	No	0	The zero-based end index of this range. (shown when Object is namedRange and Action is create)
— Style	options	No	BULLET_DISC_CIRCLE_SQUARE	The preset bullet/numbering style. (shown when Object is paragraphBullets and Action is create)
				Options: BULLET_DISC_CIRCLE_SQUARE (DISC, CIRCLE, SQUARE glyphs for the first 3 nesting levels), BULLET_CHECKBOX (checkbox glyphs for all nesting levels), NUMBERED_DECIMAL_NESTED (decimal glyphs with period separators; nested numbering)
— Footer ID	string	No	—	The ID of the footer to delete. Retrieve from document/get (simple=false) under the “footers” key. (shown when Object is footer and Action is delete)
— Header ID	string	No	—	The ID of the header to delete. Retrieve from document/get (simple=false) under the “headers” key. (shown when Object is header and Action is delete)
— Specify Range By	options	No	namedRangeId	Whether to delete the named range by its ID or by name. (shown when Object is namedRange and Action is delete)
				Options: namedRangeId, name
— ID	string	No	—	The ID of the named range to delete. (shown when Object is namedRange, Action is delete and Specify Range By is namedRangeId)
— Name (value)	string	No	—	The name of the named range to delete. (shown when Object is namedRange, Action is delete and Specify Range By is name)
— Object ID	string	No	—	The ID of the positioned object to delete. (shown when Object is positionedObject and Action is delete)
— Insert Segment	options	No	body	The document segment (body, header, or footer) in which to insert. (shown when Object is pageBreak, table, tableColumn, tableRow, text and Action is insert)
				Options: body, footer, header
— Segment ID	string	No	—	The ID of the header, footer, or footnote segment. Retrieve from document/get (simple=false). (shown when Object is pageBreak, table, tableColumn, tableRow, text and Action is insert; hidden when Insert Segment is body)
— Insert Location	options	No	endOfSegmentLocation	Where in the segment to insert the page break. (shown when Object is pageBreak and Action is insert)
				Options: endOfSegmentLocation (at end of segment), location (at index)
— Index	number	No	1	The zero-based index within the segment at which to insert the page break. Minimum 1. (shown when Insert Location is location, Object is pageBreak and Action is insert)
— Insert Location	options	No	endOfSegmentLocation	Where in the segment to insert the table. (shown when Object is table and Action is insert)
				Options: endOfSegmentLocation (at end of segment), location (at index)
— Index	number	No	1	The zero-based index within the segment at which to insert the table (use index + 1 to refer to a table). Minimum 1. (shown when Insert Location is location, Object is table and Action is insert)
— Rows	number	No	0	The number of rows in the table. (shown when Object is table and Action is insert)
— Columns	number	No	0	The number of columns in the table. (shown when Object is table and Action is insert)
— Insert Location	options	No	endOfSegmentLocation	Where in the segment to insert the text. (shown when Object is text and Action is insert)
				Options: endOfSegmentLocation (at end of segment), location (at index)
— Index	number	No	1	The zero-based index within the segment at which to insert the text. Minimum 1. (shown when Insert Location is location, Object is text and Action is insert)
— Text	string	No	—	The text to insert at the specified location. Supports expressions like {{ $json.body }}. (shown when Object is text and Action is insert)
— Old Text	string	No	—	The text to search for in the document. (shown when Object is text and Action is replaceAll)
— New Text	string	No	—	The replacement text. Supports expressions. (shown when Object is text and Action is replaceAll)
— Match Case	boolean	No	false	Whether the text search is case-sensitive. (shown when Object is text and Action is replaceAll)
— Insert Segment	options	No	body	The document segment in which the object to delete resides. (shown when Object is paragraphBullets, tableColumn, tableRow and Action is delete)
				Options: body, footer, header
— Segment ID	string	No	—	The ID of the header, footer, or footnote segment. (shown when Object is paragraphBullets, tableColumn, tableRow and Action is delete; hidden when Insert Segment is body)
— Start Index	number	No	0	The zero-based start index of the range for paragraph bullets. (shown when Object is paragraphBullets)
— End Index	number	No	0	The zero-based end index of the range for paragraph bullets. (shown when Object is paragraphBullets)
— Insert Position	options	No	true	Whether to insert the new column/row before or after the reference cell. (shown when Object is tableColumn, tableRow and Action is insert)
				Options: true (after the content at the index), false (before the content at the index)
— Index	number	No	1	The zero-based index of the table start location within the segment (use index + 1 to refer to a table). Minimum 1. (shown when Object is tableColumn, tableRow)
— Row Index	number	No	0	The zero-based row index of the reference table cell. (shown when Object is tableColumn, tableRow)
— Column Index	number	No	0	The zero-based column index of the reference table cell. (shown when Object is tableColumn, tableRow)
Revision Control	options	No	none	Optional concurrency control. Use “none” to apply to the latest revision without checking.
				Options: none (apply the update to the latest revision), targetRevisionId (apply if the revision matches; fail otherwise), requiredRevisionId (apply on top of the given revision, incorporating other collaborators’ changes)
Revision ID	string	No	—	The revision ID to use with the selected revision control mode. (shown when Revision Control is targetRevisionId, requiredRevisionId)

All Operations

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
Authentication	options	No	oAuth2	Authentication method to use.
				Options: oAuth2 (OAuth2, recommended), serviceAccount (Service Account)
Google Account	credential	No	—	Connect or select your Google account. (shown when Authentication is oAuth2)
Service Account Email	string	Yes	—	The email address of the Google service account, for example my-service-account@project.iam.gserviceaccount.com. (shown when Authentication is serviceAccount)
Private Key	string	Yes	—	The private key from the service account JSON key file. Paste the full PEM block, including the BEGIN and END lines. (shown when Authentication is serviceAccount)
Max Concurrency	number	No	5	Maximum number of items to process concurrently. Between 1 and 20.

Output Data

Exactly one output item per input item — no operation fans out. The API response is merged into the item JSON, so the incoming fields pass through except where a response field uses the same name, and binary data on the input item is forwarded unchanged.

What lands on the item depends on the operation:

Operation	Result on the output item
create	The Drive file record returned for the new document.
get, Simplify on	documentId and content — the document’s paragraph text extracted to a single plain-text string.
get, Simplify off	The raw Docs API document JSON.
update, Simplify on	The first non-empty entry from the batch replies, plus documentId. An update whose actions produce no replies returns documentId alone.
update, Simplify off	The full batchUpdate response, plus documentId.

Reference the result downstream by expression, e.g. {{ $json.content }} or {{ $json.documentId }}.

Usage Examples

• Create a new blank Google Doc in a specific Drive folder
• Get the full raw JSON of a Google Doc
• Get just the plain text content from a Google Doc
• Insert text at the end of a Google Doc
• Replace all occurrences of a placeholder text in a document
• Add a header or footer to a document
• Insert a table into a document
• Create a named range across a range of characters
• Delete paragraph bullets from a range
• Insert a page break at a specific index

Example Configuration

Create a new document inside a Drive folder:

{
  "type": "google_docs",
  "parameters": {
    "authentication": "oAuth2",
    "resource": "document",
    "operation": "create",
    "title": "{{ $json.title }}",
    "folderId": "1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms"
  }
}

Read a document’s plain text so downstream nodes can process it:

{
  "type": "google_docs",
  "parameters": {
    "resource": "document",
    "operation": "get",
    "documentURL": "{{ $json.docUrl }}",
    "simple": true
  }
}

Append text to the end of the document body:

{
  "type": "google_docs",
  "parameters": {
    "resource": "document",
    "operation": "update",
    "documentURL": "1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms",
    "actionsUi": {
      "actionFields": [
        {
          "object": "text",
          "action": "insert",
          "insertSegment": "body",
          "locationChoice": "endOfSegmentLocation",
          "text": "{{ $json.summary }}\n"
        }
      ]
    },
    "simple": true
  }
}

Fill a template by replacing a placeholder, then append a 3x2 table. Use a non-mustache placeholder such as [[CUSTOMER_NAME]] in the template — {{ … }} is reserved for workflow expressions and would be evaluated before the request is sent:

{
  "type": "google_docs",
  "parameters": {
    "resource": "document",
    "operation": "update",
    "documentURL": "{{ $json.documentId }}",
    "actionsUi": {
      "actionFields": [
        {
          "object": "text",
          "action": "replaceAll",
          "text": "[[CUSTOMER_NAME]]",
          "replaceText": "{{ $json.customerName }}",
          "matchCase": false
        },
        {
          "object": "table",
          "action": "insert",
          "insertSegment": "body",
          "locationChoice": "endOfSegmentLocation",
          "rows": 3,
          "columns": 2
        }
      ]
    },
    "writeControlType": "none"
  }
}

Error Handling

Mode	Behavior
stop	Halts workflow on first error
continue	Skips failed items, passes successful ones through
errorPort	Routes failed items to Error output port

Tips

Create, get, and update Google Docs documents using the Google Docs and Drive APIs.