Confirming that this works in Catalina 10.15.7 too. ... View more

FYI Vincent, adding that I often use BBEdit to do this, and other text editors have ways to get these IDs. Just remember that other apps may use these special characters for other things. For example,  Quark could use ID 8 for something else. ... View more

Hi:   As always, Rob has the answer! I would just like to add as an FYI that:  - Many special characters can be handled reliably with a single unicode id, such as the Right Indent Tab above. However, you might have a situation which a single character might not suffice or be reliable. In that case, another method  is to use Adobe Tagged Text files: export and import a file such as this:    <UNICODE-MAC> <vsn:15.1> <pstyle:header><cstyle:header>Continued from Page <cpnt:Previous><cpnt:><cstyle:>     ... View more

Just FYI, I get this same error on Catalina 10.15.7 with InDesign 2021. I run all kinds of InDesign/Finder scripts all the time with no problem, but I never use Do Script. When I use:    tell application id "com.adobe.InDesign" tell application "Finder" to display dialog "Hello" end tell   it works as expected. ... View more

Can I email it somewhere? ... View more

Hi: I do a lot of database publishing. My method is to use Adobe InDesign Tagged Text files. In essence, the information is in a relational database; the database outputs the text with tagged text tags; and then these outputted text files are places into the correct frames/locations with Applescripts run by the database. The database knows all the file paths and InDesign frame names. The paragraph and character styles are defined in the InDesign document; the various bits of text are tagged with those style names. By using a database, intricate logic can be used to determine all the style tags everywhere. After placing all the text files, other scripts are run for cross references, image placement, Table of Contents, etc. ... View more

Great Applescript, Rob, thanks! ... View more

> The simplicity of communicating between apps is probably the only advantage AS has over JS   Another related advantage (don't know if it's changed) is controlling several apps and the OS in the same script. ... View more

This fellow wrote an excellent book on Applescript and has made a lot of "bridge" type products for AS, Python, etc.: https://twitter.com/hhas02/with_replies ... View more

Hi. There are several historical ways people cope with this scenario: 1) The delay command will pause for user-specified number of seconds; 2) Go into a loop measuring the size of the output file in the Finder every X seconds – when it stops growing in size for a while it must be finished, so exit loop; 3) If you know that some bits will occur at the end of the file, eg, "</html>", you could do a loop to check for that bit's existence in the file. But maybe there are other ways nowadays. ... View more

Thanks for this example! Also fairly elaborate, but something for me to experiment with. ... View more

OK, thanks. I have a somewhat elaborate method to do it using a database and scripts, but was wondering what the "state of the art" was these days and whether I could simplify with some new tool or not. Maybe this always requires elaborate custom scripting. Thanks again! ... View more

Hi, I added some details as requested. Any ideas? Thanks! ... View more

Hi All:   Thanks for the comments so far. The document I have to do is basically a list of names and numbers, by categories, completely styled with paragraph and character styles. That's the good news. What makes it interesting is that there are several levels of hierarchy, one optional.   For example: 1. Category subhead (alphabetical order)        2. Subcategory subhead (Area, one of four, alpha order, but           OPTIONAL for category, ie, some categories have this            subhead, some don't)             3. Skill Type subhead (first "Professional", then "Amateur",                so not alpha)                  4. Person's name and numbers (alpha)                       5. Some names (<10%) have a second paragraph                          following their listing paragraph.     - There are Continued From frames on every page. - There are full page ads, so the text flow can skip up to 4 pages. - The people under each Skill Type subhead have the same       paragraph and character styles, so there is no way to tell       which is which just by inspecting a paragraph. - Some Categories are so long that abbreviations for them must       be used in the Continued From text.     Now, what they want for the Continued From is something like:       Line 1:  Category (possibly abbreviated to fit) [[Skill Type]]s (plural),       [[optional , Subcategory, eg, " , North Area"]]      Line 2: "Continued from Page [[#]]"     Reading the Help file led me to believe that this kind of running header was not possible, thus my question. Happy to be proven wrong!   If anyone needs more info, please ask. Either way, thanks for reading!   -k ... View more

Hi. I know you've found a solution, but another route would be to have an intermediary check-in/check-out system for users based in, say, a Filemaker or other database. Filemaker is quite scriptable and comes with networking built-in. The meta info could be inserted from Filemaker, and/or Filemaker could also keep the info so that anyone on the network could see who worked on which documents at what time, keep statistics, time worked, etc. ... View more

I always use "(return)" for a Carriage Return:           set label of (every text frame whose label is ("Filename" & (return))) to "Filename"   Also, I set the label of an item after typing it by using the Enter key (not the Return key). ... View more

Programmers are often disdainful about Applescript, that is true. But in my experience most people find it easier for "monkey-see monkey-do" scripting and modifications of existing scripts for their own use. Casual users may not be able to even get started with JS. And multi-application scripting is much easier in my opinion. For example, using a file path and text from a database, open a photo, perform adjustments, save it elsewhere with a new name, place it into InDesign, add the text from the database, format it, PDF it, and attach that PDF to an email isn't that difficult with one script in AS. Most Mac apps are Applescriptable, but many are not javascriptable. So I think it depends on what your abilities are, how much time you have, and what you need to do. ... View more

I think Applescript is easier. It also has some real advantages, even though it's not cross platform. ... View more

Hi, Erin F said to stay tuned for her blog post on UXP next week at Tech Blog, (link: https://medium.com/adobetech) medium.com/adobetech , and not to start worrying about Applescript in InDesign yet if that's all we support. Also, scripting is safe as far as she knows, and she doesn't imagine that would change on the Adobe side. (paraphrasing) ... View more

Thanks! ... View more

Interesting. Do you happen to know where I can read more about this change, or the relevant search terms? Thx ... View more

Trevor: "Applescript in InDesign doesn't have a future by the looks of things" – What do you mean by this? Thx ... View more

Wow, your Correct Answer code looks a lot like mine. ... View more

-- Here's one way to get the total area of all text frames. It could be used as the basis for getting the area of all rectangles. tell application id "com.adobe.indesign"   tell active document   set every_t to every text frame   set total_W_x_H to 0   repeat with this_TextFrame in every_t   set geo_bounds to 0   set this_W to 0   set this_H to 0   set this_W_x_H to 0   set geo_bounds to geometric bounds of this_TextFrame   -- H   set this_H to ((item 3 of geo_bounds) - (item 1 of geo_bounds))   set this_W to ((item 4 of geo_bounds) - (item 2 of geo_bounds))   set this_W_x_H to (this_H * this_W)   set total_W_x_H to (total_W_x_H + this_W_x_H)   end repeat   return total_W_x_H   end tell end tell ... View more

I've been waiting to test on Mojave and CC 2019. Now I'm on Sierra 10.12.6 and CC 2018, which were upgraded from Mavericks 10.9.5 and CS6 (and then to Sierra/CC 2017). I was able to convert all InDesign and Photoshop scripts without too much fuss, but most of my scripts are within FMP, so I could search/replace en masse. For example, using       tell application id "com.adobe.indesign" everywhere saved having to change from "Adobe InDesign CS6" to "Adobe InDesign CC 2017" to Adobe InDesign CC 2018". IIRC, there were some adjustments needed for referring to/naming frames, and more use of whose clauses and 'item 1 of" qualifiers for specificity. But on the whole, everything works on Sierra/CC 2018 as it did in Mavericks/CS6. Mojave's automation requirements and restrictions have me most worried. ... View more

-- In Applescript: tell application "Microsoft Excel"   set theCount to count sheets --> 4   (* -- another way:   -- get the sheet names:        set xlNameList to name of every sheet --> {"Sheet1", "Sheet2", "Sheet3", "Sheet4"}   -- and count the names:        set xlNameListCount to count xlNameList   *) end tell ... View more

I would look into incorporating exiftool by Phil Harvey (https://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/index.html) into your Applescript via a "do shell script" call. It's also available through homebrew. ... View more

https://forums.adobe.com/people/MW+Design  wrote 90% of every book manuscript I do starts as tagged text (typically out of Word or a database). Exactly. I have  always found that a database to tagged text file to InDesign workflow is by far better and more efficient than the xml alternative. ... View more