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gethmed
Inspiring
November 10, 2023
Question

Consecutive alphabets

  • November 10, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 485 views

Hi, I have a list of references numbered off with alphabets.

 

For example,

aOxford bCambridge cStanford

The alphabet has its own character style, while the reference content has its own different character style.

 

Due to a serious oversight, I desperately need to re-label my alphabet references, where it starts from a,b,c...z and restarts from a to z after every cycle of 26 references are completed.

 

How do I get this done? Would someone be able to write a script for me?

The idea would be to select all content that is under character style named "ref" and replace the content with consecutively cycling alphabets.

 

Here's another discussion of mine, where a similar script was written:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/grep-query/m-p/13597175#M516772

Thanks in advance!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

G
gethmedAuthor
Inspiring
November 11, 2023

Sorry for the lack of clarity.

 

I'm working on a book which uses alphabets for its footnote referencing system. The footnotes are being created manually, not using ID's reference feature.

Now, the footnote references in the body content are correct, but the actual footnotes have to be renumbered from the start due to oversights.

Since the footnotes were created manually, it'll be quite painstaking to renumber all the 100+ footnotes from the top.

The footnotes have been given a character style called "ref".
Could someone type me a script to replace all text that has the "ref" style with the alphabets from A-Z, that auto-restarts from A once Z is hit?

P.S.

I didn't use ID's reference feature as the book layout design requires the footnote text to be along the side of the footnote ref in the main body of content (2 parallel text frames side-by-side instead of one above the other). If anyone knows how to customise ID's footnote system to suit this layout, I'd appreciate a link to a tutorial of that sort!

Willi Adelberger
Community Expert
Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 11, 2023

When you do that, make an autonumbered list. In the text use a cross reference to the paragraph which draws only the paragraph number. That will automatically update the numbers or letter according to the references. 

G
gethmedAuthor
Inspiring
November 14, 2023

Thanks for the input. However I noticed that an autonumbered list does not apply the superscript position of my character style. Here's how it looks when I manually added the references.

 

Autonumbered list:

 

 

James Gifford—NitroPress
James Gifford—NitroPress
Legend
November 10, 2023

I'm not clear on where you are or where you're trying to get to. 🙂

 

If you use/d InDesign's references features, you can change things on a global basis by adjusting the styles involved, as well as the footnote/end note/cross reference settings. That's by far the recommended way to manage these needs.

 

If your system is more manual, 'hand crafted,' unique to your doc... it's probably going to take a combination of scripts, GREP and find/replace to change your references to another model. If that's the case, the best approach would be to move the refs to one of ID's standard features, so that management and further changes are simpler.

 

Can you add some details to the description of the situation and your needs?

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