App Script - Exporting Sheets Hyperlinks to Docs - google-sheets

Question

I have a google sheet - and when a new row appears I am writing the output into a Google Document using a predefined template via a merge.
All is working but as I could only work out how to use the .replaceText() function to achieve the merge, the hyperlinks in some of the sheet columns get exported as plain text.
After much fiddling and cribbing of code (thanks all) I managed to cobble together the following function:
function makeLinksClickable(document) {
const URL_PATTERN = "https://[-A-Za-z0-9+&##/%?=~_|!:,.;]+[-A-Za-z0-9+&##/%=~_|]"
const URL_PATTERN_LENGTH_CORECTION = "".length
const body = document.getBody()
var foundElement = body.findText(URL_PATTERN);
while (foundElement != null) {
var foundText = foundElement.getElement().asText();
const start = foundElement.getStartOffset();
const end = foundElement.getEndOffsetInclusive() - URL_PATTERN_LENGTH_CORECTION;
const url = foundText.getText().substring(start,end+1)
foundText.setLinkUrl(url)
foundElement = body.findText(URL_PATTERN, foundElement);
}
}
After writing out all the columns to the document I call this function on the created document to look for a hyperlink and make it hyper :)
As long as each cell only contains one hyperlink my function works.
It also works where there are multiple hyperlinks in the document.
However, some cells can have multiple hyperlinks and writes them out to the document with a new line for each one.
Although the function finds the multiple URLs correctly and makes them clickable in the document there is a problem.
For example, if there are 2 hyperlinks in the cell they get exported to 2 lines in the document, but after running them through the function - both hyperlinks will now link to the same image (the first) even though each hyperlink itself is the unique link from the original cell.
2 converted hyperlinks that link to the same image
(Note - If I don't run my function and leave the exported hyperlinks as text. Then go into the created document and manually add a space to the ends of the exported hyperlinks then they turn blue and become clickable and link to the correct image, I did try to add a space programmatically before this but couldn't work that out either)
I have exhausted my limited coding ability and can't see why my function which "seems" to work its way through each hyperlink correctly doesn't make it then link to the right image in the document.
Any help would be most appreciated.
Thanks
// ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for taking the time to look at this, I will try to explain the issues further. It is hard to show here as the links actually work properly when copied here they only misbehave in the google document.
A cell in the exported row has multiple hyperlinks separated by a comma.
they get exported from the cell to the document as text strings like this:
Links in single Sheets Cell for exporting:
"hyperlink-1-as-a-string", (links to image 1)
"hyperlink-2-as-a-string", (links to image 2)
"hyperlink-3-as-a-string", (links to image 3)
"hyperlink-4-as-a-string", (links to image 4)
"hyperlink-5-as-a-string" (links to image 5)
I then run my funtion to make them clickable again.
If there are two are more hyperlinks in the same cell when exported then I get the following issue after running the function.
Exported Text links converted by to clickable hyperlinks:
"hyperlink-1-as-a-string", (links to image 5)
"hyperlink-2-as-a-string", (links to image 5)
"hyperlink-3-as-a-string", (links to image 5)
"hyperlink-4-as-a-string", (links to image 5)
"hyperlink-5-as-a-string" (links to image 5)
I "think" what happens is that my function makes all 5 hyperlinks one big hyperlink that happens to use the last hyperlinks image.
If I copy and paste the URLs into a separate document like an email then they appear as one large hyperlink, not 5 separate ones.
// ---------------------------------------------------------------
The function searches for text patterns that are in fact google hyperlinks.
(starting https:// etc)
When it finds one it works out the length to the end of the text string and then uses setLinkUrl() to make the hyperlink - into a clickable hyperlink.
If there is only one text hyperlink then it works.
If there is more than one text hyperlink, separated by commas then it does not.

Answer 1

I worked something out. This is what I ended up with, it is basically put together from a few other questions & answers - It's not very clever but it works.
Thanks to the various posters who enabled me to figure this out.
function sortLinks(colId, mapPoint, myBody) {
var urls = [];
if (colId.includes(",")) { // IE theres more than one URL
var tmp = colId.split(",");
urls = urls.concat(tmp);
}
else {
urls[0] = colId; // 1 URL no "," add to array[0]
}
if (urls.length > 0) {
var tag = mapPoint;
var newLine = "\n";
var element = myBody.findText(tag);
if (element) {
var start = element.getStartOffset();
var text = element.getElement().asText();
text.deleteText(start, start + tag.length - 1);
urls.forEach((url, index) => {
url = url.trim();
var name = "Image-Video" + (index + 1);
text.appendText(name).setLinkUrl(start, start + name.length - 1, URL);
text.appendText(newLine);
start = start + name.length + newLine.length;
});
}