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Question

move page item into a rectangle

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
February 26, 2010
5 replies
1515 views

Hello guys,

the indesign client allows it to move a page item into a rectangle by copy it and pase with the option "paste into selection". How this behavior can be achieved by scripting on the indesign server?

Thanks for the answers!

Scripting

P

PeterPowAuthor

Known Participant

what is the best way to copy all relevant properties from one page item to another without losing information?

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

Copy the frame's properties:

from = app.documents[0].textFrames[0];
to = app.documents[0].textFrames[1];
to.texts[0].properties = from.texts[0].properties;
to.properties = from.properties;

properties include the frame's contents but not the contents' formatting, so you need to do that separately (as above). Maybe this goes for other properties as well.

Peter

P

PeterPowAuthor

Known Participant

I know the solution with the "properties"-property, but thanks for the information about formattings!

P

PeterPowAuthor

Known Participant

I tried the following approach:

var rect = doc.rectangles[0];

var text1 = doc.textFrames[0];

var text2 = doc.textFrames[1];

rect.groups.add([text1, text2]);

but the server throws an error about a "wrong parameter", do you know why?

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

You add groups to pages:

var rect = doc.rectangles[0];
var text1 = doc.textFrames[0];
var text2 = doc.textFrames[1];
doc.pages[0].groups.add([rect, text1, text2]);

P

PeterPowAuthor

Known Participant

well, the rectangle object also contains the "groups"-property, so I quess it should be possible to add groups to other objects than pages, too. Maybe the problem here is that the items I am trying to group inside the rectangle are not contained by it.

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

You can store the page item in a library, then place that asset) at the target rectangle's first insertion point.

Peter

P

PeterPowAuthor

Known Participant

A rectangle does not have insertion points, but thanks for the suggestion!

Jongware

Community Expert

That turned out to be a bit harder than I thought as first ...

It seems you cannot simply do

rectangles[0].add (someOtherObject);

or

someOtherObject.move (rectangles[0]);

With the regular version of CS4, you can easily copy the manual approach:

app.cut();
app.documents[0].rectangles[0].select();
app.pasteInto();

-- but does that even work on ID Server? (I would guess not.)

The hard way is to add an instance of your original object to the correct type of the rectangle's properties array, copy all properties of the original object into the new one, then delete the original object.

For instance, if you want to 'move' a text frame into a rectangle, do something like

origTf = textFrames[0];

myTf = rectangles[0].textFrames.add();

myTf.geometricBounds = orgTf.geometricBounds;

myTf.strokeWidth = orgTf.strokeWidth;

myTf.fillColor = orgTf.fillColor;

... for all possible properties of a text frame. For an image, do the same but with Image properties. For a graphic line, do the same but with GraphicLine properties ... (It sounds like a totally insane way of working, but remember that internally InDesign itself can access all lists of properties 'immediately'.)

You cannot use a PageItem this way ... because you can't "add" a page item!

Dave Saunders shows how it works with a very basic text frame: Easily Add Captions to Graphic Frames