Instead of app.activeDocument you can just use the shortcut property document. Next, you've got an anchored object selected. Its parent is a character. And its parent is a story. You access all the text frames that are part of a story with the property textContainers which returns an array. (story.textFrames will return any text frames that are anchored to the first insertion point of that story, basically useless.) But this won't really help you, because you may not know which frame the anchored object is in. Instead, to get the textFrame that a character is in, go directly, using the parentTextFrames property: document.selection[0].parent.parentTextFrames[0].geometricBounds[3]     ... View more

Sounds weird, but a screenshot or two might help to understand the problem. (Also, not that it usually matters, what version of InDesign and what OS?) ... View more

כחו"ט! ... View more

Ok, so now the doc is 4 .5 pages long. And yes it is that because of one threaded text frame passing over those pages. So I get rid of page 5 with it's text frame which takes up half of the page and now the frame on page 4 is overflowing. I choose that frame and it will fit everything (no graphics) onto the 4 available pages. Is the above correct? Yes, that's correct. Also if I decide in the future to actually add pages (I am allowed anything that is a multiple of 4) can I undo what it did even though it is a while after running it to fit? After adding some empty frames to the thread (so now more space is available), you can simply run FitText again. It will enlarge the text to fit the available space. ... View more

So, to be clear, it works on a per-story basis. It will enlarge or reduce all text (and indents, tabs, tables, etc.) proportionally that is threaded together in a single story, to fit the available space. So, if you have 4 text frames on 4 separate pages, all threaded together, and you notice that the last frame has some overset text, you would select one of the 4 frames, run FitText, and all the text in all 4 frames will be reduced by the same percentage to eliminate the overset text. Anything else on those pages, though, that is not part of the threaded text, will not be changed in any way. So, for instance, graphics that ARE anchored to the flow of the text in those 4 frames will be resized. But graphics which are placed on the page and are not part of the text flow will not be changed. ... View more

The answer depends on the details of the layout. If it's just a question of resizing text in a single story that spans 4 pages, Fit Text would do that with a single click: https://www.id-extras.com/products/fit-text-to-frame/ ... View more

Thanks for trying to clarify. It's still strange. I have old versions of InDesign installed on Windows 11 and functioning fine. I really don't want to update or touch them. Now you're saying that Adobe really wants me to update them so they continue to work "going forward"? Going forward where? Why shouldn't it stay stable and fully functional? Has Adobe anticipated a Windows upgrade issue that will prevent old versions of InDesign working? (Maybe it's an Adobe licensing thing? Are you planning to change your licensing system, and previous versions will continue to work even if the customer stops paying, unless they update their old versions to be compatible with the new licensing system?) Whatever, it's a bit of a weird announcement, is all I'm saying. Never hears of such a thing before. ... View more

Gemini expresses it better than I did, perhaps: The message states that "without the update, certain features may not function as intended," which implies that the update is crucial for the software to work correctly. However, it then calls the update a "hotfix." A hotfix is typically a patch for a specific, urgent bug. The word "critical" is used, but the overall message is unclear about what, exactly, is being fixed. It doesn't specify which features are impacted or what the specific problem is. This creates a contradictory situation where a "critical hotfix" is presented as a necessary measure for future functionality, rather than as a solution for a current, known problem. This leaves the user wondering if the software is already broken, or if it's an update to prevent it from breaking later. The lack of specific details makes the announcement vague and potentially concerning to users who rely on the software for their work." ... View more

Something is strange about the wording of this message. At first you say, "We are making important updates to how certain features in Adobe InDesign are supported." So the update fixes HOW certain features are supported. So this is not a bug fix. But then you say, "but applying the hotfix update is important to maintain full access to all features" – so that kind of sounds like it is a bug fix.   Anyway, can we have a few more details about what this hotfix does to InDesign, so we can decide whether we really want to install it or not?   ... View more

Yes, there is an option there to only number paragraphs. ... View more

https://www.id-extras.com/products/line-numbers/ ... View more

Change Consecutive Paragraphs does this (not free): https://www.id-extras.com/products/change-consecutive-paragraphs/ Documentation: https://www.id-extras.com/help/changeconsecpro/ It also has a fully batch-editor so you can save and reuse all the settings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nd4yGJv-l3Y     ... View more

My Export to Word script will export an entire InDesign file to a single Word (well, really RTF) file. It stiches all the stories together first, so you end up with a single Word file with all text. At that point, it should be easy to copy/paste the Word document into a text editor, or save as .txt. https://www.id-extras.com/one-click-export-indesign-to-word/   ... View more

Nested styles use the old "Seattle" magic... ... View more

And in fact I think that nested styles is the better option. Paragraph GREP styles that are heavily used in a document can cause slowdown...   ... View more

Floats is a wonderful idea in LaTex, and InDesign doesn't have anything like it as far as I know. It's a graphic element that's a bit like an anchored object except that it can position itself in the nearest available spot to its text anchor without being actually part of the text flow. This means that text can flow freely around it. For instance, you can set a float's position to be at the top of a page, and it will position itself at the top of next available page, even if that is on the next page. Anchored objects in InDesign are much more limited in that the objects must be on the same spread as their anchor. So if the anchored object is set to be at the top of the text frame and this causes the anchor itself to jump to the next page, it drags the object to the next page as well, leaving an impossible white gap on the previous page. Floats in LaTex are much smarter. I once tried to script floats in InDesign, it actually worked very nicely and saved loads of time for my own projects, but would have taken a lot more work to turn into a commercial project. ... View more

100 pages is absolutely fine. Most books are 200-300 pages, and I've 1200+ all in a single file as well... ... View more

Search-in-Styles (basically find/change inside paragraph styles and character styles) lets you do this (and, indeed, find/change almost anything else in paragraph and character styles): https://www.id-extras.com/products/search-in-styles/ ... View more

Looks like it. I upvoted it just now. ... View more

Philosophically, of course, ChatGPT is never right. It's just more or less lucky. ... View more

If I'm not mistaken, itemByName will get a frame according to its name in the Layers panel, not its script label. ... View more

If the fonts have been properly embedded in the PDFs, they're there, and nobody would need a subscription to be able to continue seeing the PDF as you intended.   ... View more

Note that if you are using InDesign's Buttons and Forms panel to set the font of form fields, those fonts will not be properly embedded in the final PDF. So if the end-user doesn't have the fonts installed, they won't be able to use your fonts to enter data in form fields on the final PDF. To properly embed fonts, you would need to select the font for each field in Acrobat rather than InDesign, or use FormMaker (which would allow you to choose the font in InDesign).   ... View more

If you want a paid-for solution, my Extract Pages is quite popular: https://www.id-extras.com/products/extract-pages/ ... View more

When you compress images during InDesign export, the type of compression can, sometimes, make a big difference, depending on the type of drawing. For line art, if I remember correctly, "Nearest neighbour" can give much better and sharper results than some of the other settings. Worth playing around with a little more. And obviously, if there's any way of using vector art rather than bitmap, that would also save a lot of space. ... View more

When you update the table of contents, it reverts to the basic table of contents formatting. Any custom formatting is lost, and will have to be redone. The best option is to convert the page numbers to live cross-references. That way, if pages are added or deleted, the page numbers update automatically and you never need to click on the "Update table of contents" option again! You can create the cross-references manually in InDesign (which is pretty quick and doable if there are only a handful), or there is my paid solution (a script), LiveTOC: https://www.id-extras.com/products/livetoc/ ... View more

If you do actually have the ME version, as @Willi Adelberger says, in the Story panel (the same place where you would set optical margin alignment) you also have a small icon at the bottom to set the "story direction." The order of the columns in a text frame follows the story direction, so if you want the columns ordered left-to-right, make sure the story direction is set to left-to-right, and if you want columns RTL, make the story direction RTL as well. ... View more