How to Download your Google Slides Presentation as a Video File

With Microsoft Powerpoint, you can easily convert your presentation decks into high-resolution video files for uploading to YouTube and other video sites. The exported video files can also include all the voice narrations and background audio that you may have included in the presentation.

Google Slides doesn’t offer an option to save presentations as videos but there’s a new add-on in town – Creator Studio – that brings new export capabilities to your Google Slides. With Creator Studio, you’ll be able to save your decks as animated GIFs, image sequences and HD video (with audio).

Watch the video tutorial for a quick introduction.

To get started, go to creatorstudio.dev and install the Google Slides add-on. It requests certain permissions as it has to read the presentation images for converting them into movies. It also requires access to creating files in your Google Drive since the exported files are automatically uploaded to your Google Drive.

Once the add-on is installed, open any deck inside Google Slides that has at least 2 or more slides. Go to the add-ons menu, choose Creator Studio and it will open up a sidebar.

Specify the width of the output file in pixels. Creator Studio will auto-calculate the height to maintain the original aspect ratio of the presentation. Next, specify the time interval (in seconds) and this is the duration for which each slide would be visible in the video before advancing to the next slide.

Finally, you have a variety of export options to choose from that are not available natively inside Google Slides.

GIF Image

An infinite looping animated GIF image is created that is perfect for sharing inside email messages and blog posts. You can even make stop motion animations by keeping the time interval very low (say 0.2 seconds).

Image Sequence

Creator Studio will capture screenshots of each slide in your presentation and save it as a numbered PNG file in your Google Drive folder. Internally, it uses the Google Slides API to generate these thumbnail images.

MP4 Video

Like the GIF image, Creator Studio will produce an MP4 video file from your deck and you can also vary the time interval between slides.

Video with Audio 

You can upload any audio file in MP3 or WAV format and it will play alongside the presentation. You can upload background music or even voice narration that will play in the background while the video is playing.

Install Creator Studio

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How to Copy Draft Emails in Gmail

You have composed a draft email inside Gmail and would like to send the same message to multiple people, but separately. The subject, the email body, the attachments are common and the only thing that differs between each message is the recipient’s email address.

Maybe you are sending your résumé to multiple companies. How can you do this without having to copy-paste the subject and body of the draft message multiple times?

Create Duplicate Email Messages in Gmail

When you compose a draft email in Gmail and hit the Send button, the email is automatically removed from the Drafts folder and moved to the Sent Items folder.

There are however two easy ways to create duplicate draft emails inside Gmail. You can either use Mail Merge for Gmail or, if you are looking for a more simple one-click option, use the Duplicate Drafts feature available inside Email Studio.

Here’s how to get started.

1. Open your Gmail mailbox, compose a new email message and save it as a draft. You can attach files, embed inline images and other rich content.
2. Go to Email Studio and authorize the app* to access your Gmail account. This is required since the app will read your Gmail drafts and create copies inside your Gmail account.
3. Once the app is authorized, click the Draft Copier section.

Copy Gmail Drafts

To quickly clone a message to send separately to someone else, select the source draft from the drop-down, then select the number of copies you wish to have and click the Create Drafts button. The copied drafts will include the complete contents of the original message, including file attachments and inline images.

The Gmail clone tool works on both desktop and mobile so you can copy Gmail draft messages on a mobile phone as well.

The web app is written in Google Scripts and uses the Gmail API to create drafts copies. The app only requires Gmail access to copy your drafts and does not share, store or upload your data anywhere.

Email Studio is free for basic usage. Free users can copy a maximum of 3 email drafts at a time while premium users can duplicate up to 10 Gmail drafts in a single batch. No branding is included in premium version.

[*] If you have trouble authorizing the app, please ensure that you are not logged into multiple Google accounts. You can try try Email Studio in Chrome’s incognito mode or use this link to sign-out of your Gmail accounts.

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How to Email Spreadsheets Automatically on a Recurring Schedule

Introducing Email Spreadsheets, a Google Sheets add-on that lets you automate the reporting of spreadsheet data and dashboards by email. If you are an office worker who has been emailing spreadsheets to colleagues manually, this add-on will save you a ton of time. And because it runs on the Google Cloud, your spreadsheet reports will be delivered even while you are offline or on vacation.

With Email Spreadsheets, you can schedule reports and it will automatically send them by email on a recurring schedule. You can email entire workbooks, specific sheets inside a workbook or even range of cells. Watch the video tutorial to get started.

Email Google Sheets Automatically

Go to the Google add-on store and install Email Google Sheets. Next, open any Google Spreadsheet in your Google Drive, go to the Add-ons menu inside the sheet, choose Email Spreadsheets from the dropdown and then choose Rules to create your first scheduled email report.

You are presented with a 3-step wizard to help the email schedule of your spreadsheet report.

Step 1: Select Sheet Export Options

1. Expand the “Select Sheets” dropdown and select one or more sheets that you would like to include in the email. Each sheet is attached as a separate file in the email but you can choose the “Merge all sheets” option to create a single file from all sheets in the workbook.
2. Select the export format. You can choose between PDF, Excel (xlsx), OpenDocument or CSV formats. The “Email without Attachment” option can be used to embed a specific range of cells in the email body without including any sheet as an attachment.
3. If you have selected PDF as the export format in step 2, you are presented with a few more options. For instance, you can change the paper orientation (Portrait or Landscape), the paper size or alter the print margins to fit more content on a page. You can choose to show gridlines, notes, sheet names and page numbers in the exported file.
4. (optional) The Cell Range option lets you specify a range in A1 notation and only that range will be exported in the PDF file.

Tip: Use the Preview button to test how your exported files would be like with the various export options.

Step 2: Write the Email Template

Next, we create an email template that will be sent with your reports. You can specify one or email recipients in the TO, CC, or BCC fields. Multiple email addresses should be separated by a comma.

You can also specify dynamic email recipients based on cell values in the spreadsheet. For instance, if the email address of the recipient is specified in cell B2 of a sheet titled “Employee Shifts”, you can put in the To field, and the add-on will pull the dynamic value from the cell at the time of sending the email report.

These dynamic cell values enclosed inside double curly braces can be used inside any of the email fields including subject, email body, and the sender’s name.

The email body can include dynamic cell values as well as ranges that make it easy of you to send portions of the spreadsheet without sharing the full workbook. For instance, you can write  to include only the specific range (B2:F9) from the Wages sheet. Internally, the add-on converts the range to an HTML table, retaining all the display formatting with CSS, and embed it into the email.

You can also include standard HTML tags like H1, IMG, A, B, EM and more to include images and rich formatting in your emails.

Tip: Use the Test Email button to send an email with the exported files before setting up the schedule.

C: Create the Email Schedule

The Google Sheets add-on includes a scheduler to help you set up recurring schedules visually. You can send email hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or even on a yearly recurring basis.

It is also possible to setup advanced schedules like:

• Send a recurring email on the last working day of the month.
• Send email reports every alternate day and end the reporting after 15 days.
• Set up a quarterly schedule and send email reports on the first Monday of the quarter.

That’s it. After specifying the schedule, hit the Save button and your email report will be scheduled.

If you would like to edit your current email report or schedule a new report, go the add ons menu again, choose Email Spreadsheets and Rules.

Download Email Sheets

Email Google Sheets – How it works?

The add-on is written in Google Apps Script. It uses the Google Sheets API to convert sheets to PDF files and uses the Gmail API for sending the converted files as attachments.

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How to Track your Study Time with Google Forms and Sheets

In most organizations, employees are required to fill timesheets every week so the company can track the amount of time that people have spent working on various projects and tasks.

My kids are in middle/high school and I’ve been looking for a timesheet-style solution that would help me understand their studying patterns and learn how much time they spend on various subjects.

There are quite a few apps available for time tracking but I was looking for something simple and Google Forms fit the bill perfectly. The multiple-choice grid question is handy for quickly marking the time that they have spent on various subjects. I also added a Linear scale question for them to self-evaluate their daily screen time on a relative scale.

Here’s how the final study log form looks like:

The Email Form Notifications add-on is enabled for this Google Form so parents get an instant email when the boys submit the study log form. The email contains all the form answers in a neatly formatted table. An instant push notification is sent on the mobile phone as well with IFTTT.

Google Forms write all the form responses in a Google Spreadsheet and that makes it even easier to analyze the study pattern visually. You can use one of the available charts or hit the “Explore” button in Google Sheets and ask questions in natural English about the answers stored in your spreadsheet.

For instance, you can say “Sum of Subjects [Physics] by Name last week” and it will instantly tell you the amount of time that each kid has spent on that subject last week. Or say “What percentage of Subjects [Physics] is not empty where name is Aryaman” to know the percentage of days when he touched a particular subject.

And because Google Forms work just fine on mobile devices, students can quickly fill the time log anywhere as long as they know the form’s URL.

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