Amarika
Let the formatting handle itself.
The problem Amarika solves
The Problem It Solves
Document formatting is a repetitive and time-consuming task that often takes more effort than writing the content itself. When documents are created collaboratively, copied from multiple sources, or required to follow a specific format, maintaining consistency becomes difficult.
Users frequently spend hours manually fixing headings, spacing, font styles, and layouts just to meet formatting requirements. This process is inefficient, error-prone, and takes focus away from the actual content.
How Amarika Helps
Amarika automates document formatting to eliminate manual effort and inconsistencies.
With Amarika, users can:
- Paste a Google Docs link and receive a clean, consistently formatted version
- Upload a DOCX file for automatic formatting
- Use a pre-formatted DOCX file as a custom template and apply the same style across multiple documents
- Reduce formatting errors caused by manual edits
- Continue working on the same Google Docs link, with formatting applied directly
By handling formatting automatically, Amarika allows users to focus on writing and collaboration instead of layout and styling.
Challenges we ran into
Following are the challenges Team Nexus ran into in the first round (All of them are solved now.)
One of the main challenges was working with Google Docs inside an iframe. Due to Google’s security restrictions, Google Docs does not allow itself to be embedded or manipulated freely within iframes. This made it difficult to preview or interact with documents directly inside the application. To work around this, the approach was redesigned so that formatting is applied directly to the document, and users view the results by revisiting the original Google Docs link.
Another major hurdle was the lack of free and reliable APIs for document formatting and Google Docs manipulation. Many available services either require paid plans or have strict usage limits. To overcome this, the backend logic was implemented using custom formatting rules and direct document processing instead of relying on third-party APIs.
The project was initially planned as a browser extension, but technical limitations and time constraints made this difficult to implement within the hackathon timeline. As a result, the idea was pivoted into a web-based application, which allowed faster development, easier authentication, and more flexibility while still preserving the core functionality.
These challenges led to key design decisions that ultimately shaped Amarika into a more stable and usable product within the given constraints.
All of these problems are now solved!