How to unset a characterStyle characterAttribute?

Question

I am writing a script that will replace one Character Style with another:

OldStyle - size: 40pt · Font Family: Verdana · Font Style: Italic
NewStyle - Font Family: Comic Sans · Font Style: Bold

It was easy to apply the properties of the new style to the old style.

But I cannot find out how to remove the Size: 40pt from OldStyle. I have tried:

oldStyle['size'] = false; // invalid text range

oldStyle['size'] = undefined; // numeric value expected

oldStyle['size'] = null; // numeric value expected

oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'] = false; //numeric value expected

oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'] = undefined; //numeric value expected

oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'] = null; //numeric value expected

delete oldStyle.characterAttributes['size']; // no error but didn't work

delete oldStyle['size']; // no error but didn't work

oldStyle['size'].remove();

// oldStyle['size'].remove is not a function

oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'].remove();

// oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'].remove is not a function

oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'].remove;

// oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'].remove is not a function

oldStyle.characterAttributes['size'] = newStyle.characterAttributes['size'];

// the requested attribute is undefined for the text range

oldStyle['size'] = newStyle['size'];

// the requested attribute is undefined for the text range

I can't think of anything else to try, but I still need to remove the "size" property from the NewStyle style definition.

Anybody got any ideas?

Andy Swift · Accepted Answer

Are you trying to simply copy the style from document 1 into document 2?

Can you create a graphic style based on the source text and then apply that graphic style to the destination text?

The answer is:

characterStyle.clear();

You can clear the old Character Style then import the CharacterAttributes of the new style.

There are many aspects of ExtendScript that are not documented in the Adobe Scripting Reference.

To see them, open the ExtendScript Toolkit application (available for free from Adobe) and click Help › Object Model Viewer

For example:

- under Browser in the top left corner choose Adobe Illustrator XX Type Library

- under Classes scroll down to CharacterStyle

- under Properties and Methods, clear() is listed as method (it's not in the PDF reference)

The definition (on the right) is Remove all the attributes from this character style.

Andy Swift · Answer

I can't figure out how to edit my question but here is the actual program:

// copy attributes of "sourceCS" to "destinationCS"
// and delete attributes in "destinationCS" that are
// not present in "sourceCS"
for (var attrbt in sourceCS.characterAttributes {
  // new style has this attribute
  try{ thisattrbt = sourceCS.characterAttributes[attrbt]; }
  // new style does not have this attribute
  catch(err){ thisattrbt = null; }
  if (thisattrbt){
    // attribute exists so add it to destinationCS
    destinationCS.characterAttributes[attrbt] = thisattrbt;  
  } else {
    // attribute does not exist, need to make
    // sure it does not exist in destinationCS
    // this is the line I can't make work
    destinationCS.characterAttributes[attrbt].remove();
  }
}

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