I need to display a pdf in my google drive as a thumbnail ,in a google sheet..how to do it Using google script?

Question

I have a folder in google drive which contains pdfs. Some of them contain images and some do not. I need to display each of those pdf files as thumbnails in a google sheet using a google script. Please help me if you know any method to do it...

Answer 1

You can create Thumbnail of pdf file and save it to drive. If you want resize thumb, you can use thumbnailLink.

1. Read file pdf to get thumbnail: var file = DriveApp.getFileById('xxxx- file id');

2. Get thumbnail blob: var thumbBlob = file.getThumbnail();

3. Save thumbnail to Drive: var res = Drive.Files.insert({title: "temp.jpg"}, thumbBlob);

4. Get thumbnailLink: Logger.log(file.thumbnailLink);

The thumbnailLink is https:// lh3.googleusercontent.com/.....=s220 . You have to change 220 to your desired width.

Answer 2

Sorry to post this as a new answer, but don't have enough reputation to comment on the above. Please advise if I am to post this in a different way/open a new thread??

The solution provided by @David Nguyen did not work for me. I'm trying to create the thumbnail of a PDF file in my drive. The following script doesn't go anywhere (because thumbBlob = null) as this file does not have a thumbnail in its metadata.

 function newtry() {
  //Read file pdf to get thumbnail:
  var file = DriveApp.getFileById('myFileUniqueID');
  //Get thumbnail blob:
  var thumbBlob = file.getThumbnail();
  //Save thumbnail to Drive: 
  var res = Drive.Files.insert({
    title: "temp.jpg"
  }, thumbBlob);
  //Get thumbnailLink:
  Logger.log(file.thumbnailLink);
}

To me, it looks like this script can only be used to save existing thumbnails as a separate image file, correct? But how can I (bulk) create thumbnails for all my drive files (that don't have yet)? Have been looking and trying for hours now.