I’m working on a PHP project and need to add new worksheets to an existing Google Spreadsheet using the Sheets API v4. The official documentation doesn’t provide clear examples for PHP implementation when it comes to adding new tabs to a spreadsheet that already exists.
I’ve noticed that the batchUpdate method seems to work when testing through the API Explorer interface, but I can’t figure out how to translate that into proper PHP code. Has anyone successfully implemented this functionality? I’m looking for a straightforward PHP example that shows how to programmatically create new sheets within an existing spreadsheet file.
Any guidance on the correct request structure and PHP implementation would be really helpful.
I ran into this exact issue about six months ago when building a reporting dashboard. The key is understanding that you need to construct the AddSheetRequest properly within the batchUpdate call. Here’s what worked for me: The main gotcha is that you need to wrap your AddSheetRequest inside a Request object, then pass that to batchUpdate. I was initially trying to call addSheet directly which doesn’t exist in the PHP client library. Make sure you’re setting the spreadsheetId correctly and that your service account has edit permissions on the target spreadsheet. One thing that tripped me up initially was the response handling - the batchUpdate returns information about all the operations performed, so you’ll need to parse through that to get the new sheet’s ID if you need it for subsequent operations. Also worth noting that if you don’t specify sheet properties like title, it will create a sheet with a default name which might not be what you want.
had similar headaches with this until i realized the php client needs you to create a new Google_Service_Sheets_AddSheetRequest object first, then wrap it in Google_Service_Sheets_Request. dont forget to set the spreadsheet id in the batchUpdate call itself, not in the addsheet request - that confused me for days lol
After struggling with this for weeks, I finally got it working by focusing on the correct array structure for the request body. The trick is building the batchUpdate request with the proper nested arrays - you need a ‘requests’ array containing objects with ‘addSheet’ keys, and each addSheet object should have a ‘properties’ object with at least the sheet title. What helped me debug was logging the actual JSON being sent to the API versus what the API Explorer generates. I found that I was missing the proper array wrapping around the addSheet request. Another issue I encountered was authentication scopes - make sure your service account has the full spreadsheets scope, not just readonly. The response will give you the new sheet ID in the replies array which you can use for further operations on that specific worksheet.