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Every 15 minutes

Translate any deck you drop in a Drive folder

Decks you put in your Drive 'Translate' folder are copied and every piece of text is translated into Spanish, keeping the original layout.

Runs
Every 15 minutes
Apps
Google Drive, Google Slides
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
Drive read+write; Slides write

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 15 minutes, when I drop a Slides deck in my Drive 'Translate' folder, make a Spanish copy with all the text translated and the same layout.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A company presenting to partners abroad needs its sales or training deck in another language. Sending it to a translator takes days; copying text into a translation tool slide by slide takes hours and breaks the formatting.

Translating a copy in place keeps the design intact and gives you a draft within minutes, ready for a native speaker to polish.

What you get out of it

  • A translated draft in minutes

    Days of turnaround become a quick check by a native speaker.

  • Layout preserved

    Text is replaced in place, so images, colours and positions stay the same.

  • Original untouched

    The translation is a copy; your source deck isn't changed.

  • Drop and forget

    Anyone on the team can request a translation by moving a file.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 15 minutes, ClickRuntime checks your Translate folder for decks it hasn't handled.

  2. It makes a copy of each new deck.

  3. It collects the text from every slide, and AI translates it into Spanish.

  4. It replaces the text in the copy with the translation, keeping the layout.

  5. Handled decks are remembered, so each is translated once.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Google Drive
  • Connect Google Slides

What you get

RunsEvery 15 minutes
Translate any deck you drop in a Drive foldertoday, 9:00Succeeded
Google Drive · TranslateNorthwind Partner Pitch (Spanish) – 14 slides translated

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.
  • Your own rules

    Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.

  • Any number of apps

    One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.

  • AI where it helps

    Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.

  • On a schedule or on each event

    Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

  • Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
  • Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
  • Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
  • Combine it with other Google Drive and Google Slides steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.
translate_a_google_slides_deck.pyexample
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, ai, report_fetched

FOLDER, LANGUAGE = "translate-folder-id", "Spanish"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    drive, done = build("drive", "v3", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False), set(state.get("done") or [])
    decks = [f for f in drive.files().list(q=f"'{FOLDER}' in parents and mimeType='application/vnd.google-apps.presentation' and not name contains '({LANGUAGE})'").execute()["files"] if f["id"] not in done]
    report_fetched(len(decks))
    if not decks:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    slides = build("slides", "v1", credentials=Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work")), cache_discovery=False).presentations()
    for d in decks:
        copy = drive.files().copy(fileId=d["id"], body={"name": f"{d['name']} ({LANGUAGE})", "parents": [FOLDER]}).execute()["id"]
        texts = sorted({run["textRun"]["content"].strip() for s in slides.get(presentationId=copy).execute()["slides"] for el in s.get("pageElements", [])
                        for run in el.get("shape", {}).get("text", {}).get("textElements", []) if run.get("textRun", {}).get("content", "").strip()})
        out = ai.generate(f"Translate each line into {LANGUAGE}. Return exactly one line per input line.\n" + "\n".join(texts), max_output_tokens=2048).text.splitlines()
        reqs = [{"replaceAllText": {"containsText": {"text": t, "matchCase": True}, "replaceText": tr}} for t, tr in zip(texts, out) if tr.strip()]
        slides.batchUpdate(presentationId=copy, body={"requests": sorted(reqs, key=lambda r: -len(r["replaceAllText"]["containsText"]["text"]))}).execute()
        done.add(d["id"])
    state.set("done", list(done))
    return {"translated": len(decks)}

FAQ

Common questions

Can it translate into other languages?
Yes. Change the target language, or use one folder per language.
What about text in images or charts?
Only text boxes, shapes and tables are translated. Text inside images isn't.
Will longer translations overflow?
Some languages run longer. Check slides with tightly fitted text and adjust where needed.
What permissions does it need?
Drive read+write; Slides write. Nothing else in your accounts is used.
Does it need AI?
Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.
How many runs does it use?
One run each time it checks. Checks that find nothing new and stop right away aren't counted.
Can I change how it works?
Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

Set up “Translate any deck you drop in a Drive folder” from your assistant

Copy the prompt above, or connect your assistant first. Free plan, no credit card.