Working with elements from ExtendScript

Michael,

These samples do not contain specific examples for what you want to do. To supplement them, here is a function that inserts a new element and adds text to it. Arguments are:

doc (Object) - A valid document object.

parentElem (Object) - The element into which you want to insert the new element. The new element is inserted at the beginning.

newElemTag (String) = The tag for the new element.

newElemText (String) = The text for the new element.

Note that:

  - This function has no error checking, which would be a good idea for a more robust script.

  - When adding elements and inserting text, you have to deal with text and element locations. These can be complicated to understand for a beginner.

Russ

function insertElementAndAddText(doc, parentElem, newElemTag, newElemText)
{
    //Get the element definition from the EDD for a <p> element.
    var elementDef = doc.GetNamedElementDef(newElemTag);

    //Set up the element location for the insertion...
    //the beginning of the current element branch.
    var elementLoc = new ElementLoc();
    elementLoc.parent = parentElem;
    elementLoc.child = parentElem.FirstChildElement;
    elementLoc.offset = 0;
    
    //Insert the new element
    var newElem = elementDef.NewElementInHierarchy(elementLoc);
    
    //Adjust the element location to be at the beginning of the
    //new element branch
    elementLoc.parent = newElem;
    elementLoc.child = newElem.FirstChildElement;
    elementLoc.offset = 0;

    //Set up the text location required to add the text, then add it.
    textLoc = doc.ElementLocToTextLoc(elementLoc);
    doc.AddText(textLoc, newElemText);
}