Can you run code in Google Sheets?

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This wikiHow teaches you how to access Google's script editor in a desktop internet browser, and run code in the editor for testing purposes.

1. 

   1

   Open Google Sheets in your internet browser. Type sheets.google.com in your browser's address bar, and hit ↵ Enter or ⏎ Return on your keyboard.

2. 

   2

   Click a spreadsheet file. Find the spreadsheet you want to run a script on, and open it.

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3. 

   3

   Click the Tools tab. This button is on a tabs bar below the file name in the upper-left corner of your spreadsheet. It will open a drop-down menu.

4. 

   4

   Tap Script editor on the Tools menu. This will open the Google's browser-based script editor in a new tab.

5. 

   5

   Create your script in the script editor. You can type your script here, or delete everything on the page and paste code from your clipboard.

   • If you're looking for some useful scripts, Google offers a few basic suggestions in their developer guides.

6. 

   6

   Name your script project. Click the "Untitled project" heading in the upper-left corner of your window, and enter a title for your new script project in the "Edit Project Name" window.

7. 

   7

   Click the

   
   icon to run your script. This button is on a toolbar below the file name and tabs bar in the upper-left corner of your window. It will save and run the code in the script editor.
   • If you're prompted to authorize script testing, click the Review Permissions button, and Allow script testing in your account settings.

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About This Article

Article SummaryX

1. Open Google Sheets.
2. Click a file.
3. Click the Tools tab.
4. Click Script editor.
5. Enter your script into the editor.
6. Click the Play/Run icon on the toolbar at the top.

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There is a way to use Google Docs as a programming IDE and run JavaScript code inside the editor.

You have been using Google Docs to write documents and essays but did you know that the same editor can also be used to write and run JavaScript code?

It is no replacement for a dedicated IDE like Visual Studio code but Google Docs can be used as a JavaScript playground to quickly run code snippets.

Here’s a sample document written in Google Docs and the document body contains a JavaScript function that calculates the number of days left until the next Christmas.

Go to the Code Runner menu, choose Run JavaScript and the output of the function will display in a popup. See demo

Code Runner in Google Docs

Internally, there’s a little Google Apps Script that is doing the magic. It reads the body of your Google Document as a text string and uses the eval() function of JavaScript to evaluate the text.

/**
 * @OnlyCurrentDoc
 */

function codeRunner() {
  const doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();
  const text = doc.getBody().getText();
  const response = eval(text);
  DocumentApp.getUi().alert(response);
}

function onOpen() {
  const ui = DocumentApp.getUi();
  const menu = ui.createMenu('Code Runner');
  menu.addItem('🦄 Run JavaScript ', 'codeRunner');
  menu.addToUi();
}

Related reading:

• Call JavaScript functions by Name
• JavaScript design patterns

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