Work with suggestions

Google Docs lets collaborators make suggestions that are effectively deferred edits waiting for approval.

When you use the documents.get method to fetch document content, the content might include unresolved suggestions. To control how documents.get represents suggestions, use the optional SuggestionsViewMode parameter. The following filter conditions are available with this parameter:

  • Get content with SUGGESTIONS_INLINE, so text pending either deletion or insertion appears in the document.
  • Get content as a preview with all suggestions accepted.
  • Get content as a preview, without suggestions, with all suggestions rejected.

If you don't provide SuggestionsViewMode, the Google Docs API uses a default setting appropriate to the current user’s privileges.

Suggestions & indexes

One reason the SuggestionsViewMode is important is that the indexes in the response might vary depending on whether there are suggestions, as shown below.

Content with suggestions Content without suggestions 
{
 "tabs": [
  {
   "documentTab": {
    "body": {
     "content": [
      {
       "startIndex": 1,
       "endIndex": 31,
       "paragraph": {
        "elements": [
         {
          "startIndex": 1,
          "endIndex": 31,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "Text preceding the suggestion\n",
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         }
        ],
        "paragraphStyle": {
         "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT",
         "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT"
        }
       }
      },
      {
       "startIndex": 31,
       "endIndex": 51,
       "paragraph": {
        "elements": [
         {
          "startIndex": 31,
          "endIndex": 50,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "Suggested insertion",
           "suggestedInsertionIds": [
            "suggest.vcti8ewm4mww"
           ],
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         },
         {
          "startIndex": 50,
          "endIndex": 51,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "\n",
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         }
        ],
        "paragraphStyle": {
         "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT",
         "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT"
        }
       }
      },
      {
       "startIndex": 51,
       "endIndex": 81,
       "paragraph": {
        "elements": [
         {
          "startIndex": 51,
          "endIndex": 81,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "Text following the suggestion\n",
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         }
        ],
        "paragraphStyle": {
         "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT",
         "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT"
        }
       }
      }
     ]
    }
   }
  }
 ]
},


{
 "tabs": [
  {
   "documentTab": {
    "body": {
     "content": [
      {
       "startIndex": 1,
       "endIndex": 31,
       "paragraph": {
        "elements": [
         {
          "startIndex": 1,
          "endIndex": 31,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "Text preceding the suggestion\n",
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         }
        ],
        "paragraphStyle": {
         "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT",
         "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT"
        }
       }
      },
      {
       "startIndex": 31,
       "endIndex": 32,
       "paragraph": {
        "elements": [
         {
          "startIndex": 31,
          "endIndex": 32,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "\n",
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         }
        ],
        "paragraphStyle": {
         "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT",
         "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT"
        }
       }
      },
      {
       "startIndex": 32,
       "endIndex": 62,
       "paragraph": {
        "elements": [
         {
          "startIndex": 32,
          "endIndex": 62,
          "textRun": {
           "content": "Text following the suggestion\n",
           "textStyle": {}
          }
         }
        ],
        "paragraphStyle": {
         "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT",
         "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT"
        }
       }
      }
     ]
    }
   }
  }
 ]
},

In the response above, the paragraph containing the line "Text following the suggestion" shows the difference when using SuggestionsViewMode. With the value set to SUGGESTIONS_INLINE, the startIndex of the ParagraphElement begins at 51 and the endIndex stops at 81. Without suggestions, the startIndex and endIndex range from 32–62.

Get content without suggestions

The following partial code sample shows how to get a document as a preview with all suggestions rejected (if there are any) by setting the SuggestionsViewMode parameter to PREVIEW_WITHOUT_SUGGESTIONS.

Java

final string SUGGEST_MODE = "PREVIEW_WITHOUT_SUGGESTIONS";
Document doc =
    service
        .documents()
        .get(DOCUMENT_ID)
        .setIncludeTabsContent(true)
        .setSuggestionsViewMode(SUGGEST_MODE)
        .execute();

Python

SUGGEST_MODE = "PREVIEW_WITHOUT_SUGGESTIONS"
result = (
  service.documents()
  .get(
      documentId=DOCUMENT_ID,
      includeTabsContent=True,
      suggestionsViewMode=SUGGEST_MODE,
  )
  .execute()
)

Omitting the SuggestionsViewMode parameter is equivalent to providing DEFAULT_FOR_CURRENT_ACCESS as the parameter value.

Style suggestions

Documents can also have style suggestions. These are suggested changes to formatting and presentation, rather than changes to content.

Unlike text insertions or deletions, these don't offset the indexes—although they might break up a TextRun into smaller chunks—but just add annotations about the suggested style change.

One such annotation is a SuggestedTextStyle, which consists of 2 parts:

  • The textStyle, which describes how the text is styled after the suggested change, but doesn't say what changed.

  • The textStyleSuggestionState, which indicates how the suggestion alters the fields of the textStyle.

You can see this in the following document tab extract, which includes a suggested style change:

[01] "paragraph": {
[02]    "elements": [
[03]        {
[04]            "endIndex": 106,
[05]            "startIndex": 82,
[06]            "textRun": {
[07]                "content": "Some text that does not ",
[08]                "textStyle": {}
[09]            }
[10]        },
[11]        {
[12]            "endIndex": 115,
[13]            "startIndex": 106,
[14]            "textRun": {
[15]                "content": "initially",
[16]                "suggestedTextStyleChanges": {
[17]                    "suggest.xymysbs9zldp": {
[18]                        "textStyle": {
[19]                            "backgroundColor": {},
[20]                            "baselineOffset": "NONE",
[21]                            "bold": true,
[22]                            "fontSize": {
[23]                                "magnitude": 11,
[24]                                "unit": "PT"
[25]                            },
[26]                            "foregroundColor": {
[27]                                "color": {
[28]                                    "rgbColor": {}
[29]                                }
[30]                            },
[31]                            "italic": false,
[32]                            "smallCaps": false,
[33]                            "strikethrough": false,
[34]                            "underline": false
[35]                        },
[36]                        "textStyleSuggestionState": {
[37]                            "boldSuggested": true,
[38]                            "weightedFontFamilySuggested": true
[39]                        }
[40]                    }
[41]                },
[42]                "textStyle": {
[43]                    "italic": true
[44]                }
[45]            }
[46]        },
[47]        {
[48]            "endIndex": 143,
[49]            "startIndex": 115,
[50]            "textRun": {
[51]                "content": " contain any boldface text.\n",
[52]                "textStyle": {}
[53]            }
[54]        }
[55]    ],
[56]    "paragraphStyle": {
[57]        "direction": "LEFT_TO_RIGHT",
[58]        "namedStyleType": "NORMAL_TEXT"
[59]    }
[60] }

In the sample above, the paragraph consists of 3 text runs, starting at lines 6, 14, and 50. Examine the middle text run:

  • Line 16: There's a suggestedTextStyleChanges object.
  • Line 18: The textStyle specifies various formatting.
  • Line 36: The textStyleSuggestionState tells you that only the bold part of this specification was the suggestion.
  • Line 42: The italic styling of this text run is part of the current document (and not affected by the suggestion).

Only the style features set to true in the textStyleSuggestionState are part of the suggestion.