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Ask HN: How useful is Gemini for Google Apps?

3 points by cobbzilla ↗ HN
I recently wrote a Google doc to describe a presentation. I used a Heading 1 style for each "Slide N: Description" section, and it was otherwise cleanly formatted.

Then I hit the magic Gemini button and asked (more or less) "Make me a Google Slides presentation based on this document"

Gemini (paraphrasing): "Oh, sorry, I can't create new documents in Google Drive".

OK, I create a new blank Google Slides document. I press the magic Gemini button. After some preamble prompt BS, I paste my "Slides" document content, and ask it to create me some slides.

Gemini (paraphrasing): "Oh, sorry, I can only work on one slide at a time".

WTF? I go to a different frontier LLM, I ask it to make me a PPTX file from my description (which I downloaded from Google docs as markdown). After a few minutes I have a nice PPTX file. I upload that to Google Drive and open it. Google converts it to Slides. NOW, finally, I have the joy of improving one slide at a time with Gemini.

Why does my workflow suck so bad here? There must be a better way! Please help me HN.

I'm also keen to hear what are some actual cool tricks that do work with Gemini and/or frustrations others have had. Let loose.

6 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 42.5 ms ] thread
aliayaz112
I don't use it but probably chatgpt and claude are better for this type of work
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
skyberrys
I have a paid (lowest grade) Google workspace account and I recently gave Gemini a copy of a text agenda and asked it to pop out slides with references for me. I got back 11 slides with nice references to all the state laws relevant to the agenda topics and some graphics it found online too corresponding to the agenda topics.

Did you not ask it from the Gemini web interface? Did you try to use the one already built into Google slides? It looks like you already had slides open and used it's magic button... I didn't I went straight to the Gemini app online.