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ep_nna
Participating Frequently
June 17, 2024
Question

get status of cross references

  • June 17, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 293 views

Hi all

 

Is there a way to get the status of a cross reference in JavaScript, basically like LinkStatus.LINK_MISSING etc. but for cross references? I would like to loop through a book and report cross references with errors (missing document, missing source etc.) to the user.

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1 reply

Peter Kahrel
Community Expert
Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
Community Expert
June 17, 2024

Not really. Cross-references are underlyingly huperlinks whose source is a CrossRefereceSource. So you'd have to check those hyperlinks (they're not visible in the Hyperlinks panel).

 

If the cross-ref's source is deleted, the hyperlink is deleted as well.

If the cross-ref's destination is deleted, then the hyperlink's destination is null.

 

That's about all you can determine as far as I know.

 

P.

    E
    ep_nnaAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    June 18, 2024

    Hi Peter

     

    That's disappointing. Anyway, what I tried to do was finding hyperlinks with source CrossReferenceSource and destination null, like so:

    var _currDoc = app.activeDocument;
var _errorHyperlinksDoc = [];
for (var i = 0; i < _currDoc.hyperlinks.length; i++) {
    var _hyperlink = _currDoc.hyperlinks[i];
      if (_hyperlink.source == "[object CrossReferenceSource]" && _hyperlink.destination == null) {
        _currDoc.hyperlinks[i].showSource();
        _errorHyperlinksDoc.push(app.selection[0].parentTextFrames[0].parentPage.name)
    }  
}
alert(_errorHyperlinksDoc);

     

    However, even though one of my two cross references is kind of broken (it's not red with a question mark but a red flag with a question mark, so the destination has been deleted and should therefore be null (?)), the alert at the end returns empty. So, is there a way to achieve what I'm trying to do at all?

    Peter Kahrel
    Community Expert
    Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 18, 2024

    Your script works fine over here, not sure why it doesn't work at your end. Maybe you could post the file.

     

    Your script can be made more efficient as follows. Functionally it's the same as your script, it's just more efficient:

     

     

    var _currDoc = app.activeDocument;
var _errorHyperlinksDoc = [];
var hlinks = _currDoc.hyperlinks.everyItem().getElements();
for (var i = 0; i < hlinks.length; i++) {
  var _hyperlink = hlinks[i];
  if (_hyperlink.source instanceof CrossReferenceSource 
      && _hyperlink.destination == null) {
    _errorHyperlinksDoc.push (
      _hyperlink.source.sourceText.parentTextFrames[0].parentPage.name
    );
  }
}
alert(_errorHyperlinksDoc);

     

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