How to get element text with ExtendScript ?

Hi,

Here is a function I use to do it. It only works for container and table cell elements. It's surprisingly complicated to work with text in FrameMaker, but I think it's just the nature of text. The function is not commented, so I hope you can make some sense of it.

Russ

        
//if you want to preserve pgf marks with some sort of character (\n, etc.)
//send it for pgfMarkSubstitution, otherwise send an empty string.
function elem_GetElementText(doc, elem, pgfMarkSubstitution)
{
    var text = "";
    
    if(!doc.ObjectValid()) doc = app.ActiveDoc;
    if(!doc.ObjectValid()) return "";
    
    if(!elem.ObjectValid()) return "";
    
    var tr = new TextRange();
    
    if(elem.ElementType == Constants.FV_FO_TBL_CELL)
    {
        tr.beg.obj = elem.Object.FirstPgf;
        tr.beg.offset = 0;
        tr.end.obj = elem.Object.FirstPgf;
        tr.end.offset = Constants.FV_OBJ_END_OFFSET;
    }
        
    else tr = elem.TextRange;
    
    var ti = doc.GetTextForRange(tr, Constants.FTI_String | Constants.FTI_PgfEnd);
    
    for(var i = 0; i < ti.len; i++)
    {
        if(ti[i].dataType == Constants.FTI_PgfEnd && pgfMarkSubstitution != "")
            text += pgfMarkSubstitution;
        else if(ti[i].dataType == Constants.FTI_String)
            text += ti[i].sdata;
    }

    return text;    
}