Create Docs through the Drive API with specific page setups (margins, orientation) - google-api

Question

My app is already able to create Google Docs through the Drive API, and when doing so I can choose the title, data, and metadata. But I've been looking at the documentation and it seems there is no way to set some other properties of the Docs, such as the margins and the orientation (portrait or landscape) of the Docs being created. Is there a way to do so?
After not finding an answer in the documentation, the only thing I could think of was logging in with my Google Account, going to one of the created Docs, click on "Page setup", then select "Landscape", and finally "Set as default". I thought that by setting it as the default in my Google Account, it may happen that all the Docs created with it may be created as Landscapes. But it didn't work. A possible reason, however, is that the account actually creating the documents is a Service Account, not my regular Google Account. I guess both accounts, while being linked, are not the same thing, so the defaults of one don't apply to the other. Is there some way to set "Portrait" as the default orientation for the Docs created with my Service Account? If not, would the solution be to stop creating the Docs with my Service Account, and start creating them with my regular Google Account, so that the defaults I apply to them apply too to the newly created Docs?

Answer 1

Drive API doesn't support Docs related features for you to retrieve/set metadata about the documents.
Service accounts are individual Google accounts and no way related with your own user account. On the other hand, your default settings will only apply to you. You cant programatically set other user's defaults.

Answer 2

The best way I can think of, which is really a hack, is to make your own google docs API using headless chrome and pupeteer, which could be used only in part, and in connection with, the official docs API.
This is basically a web browser that runs on your server, which can be controlled to do anything a client would normally do on a web browser, like click buttons, submit forms, etc, only at the command of a server, which can be commanded through HTTP requests etc.
So after installing puppeteer, open the chromium browser, log into your google account, then open google drive with the server, and you should already be logged into the account. If not, you may have to log into the account using the server logic, which can get complicated with 2 step verification...
but anyway once you are logged into your google account on puppeteer, on drive.google.com, simply stay on that page and wait.
If the server receives some kind of HTTP request to make a new document, then have the server just literally click the new document button on the webpage, and it should open the new document in a new tab, which you should be able to access with puppeteer.
Then, when it is made, you can either just send the URL back to the request server, and / or make your page setup changes now, based on the data received in the HTTP request earlier.
For example, if, at one point (either after the document is created, or during its creation), there is some kind of message specifying the color of the background, just manually, on the server side, click File -> page setup, and select Custom, and, programmatically "type" the hex color code etc then click the OK button, then end the POST request.
If you have any questions, let me know

Answer 3

var doc = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument();
var body = doc.getBody();
//turn landscape if portrait
var oldHeight = body.getPageHeight();
if (oldHeight > body.getPageWidth()){
body.setPageHeight(body.getPageWidth());
body.setPageWidth(oldHeight);
}