Need some help with anchored objects
Hi there,
I'm using fairly standard documents, containing the usual textflows and a variety of styles. I also have on a regular base grouped and anchored objects, containing an image and some optional captions in the form of textboxes. These documents are provided to me for translation, so not much options to work on the source content. In order to simplify workflows I want to establish an XML workflow without depending too much on IDML as only option since I also want to use the XML for other purposes.
I managed to get quite far with information I found on the site but am stuck to get the final bits and pieces running. I'm perfectly able to tag all elements and paragraphs on the non anchored stuff , but fail to work it out the way I want with the textboxes in the anchored groups, as they are not taggable as long as they are anchored and grouped.
The patch I do now is to copy all anchored grous to a seperate layer, so the content can be ungrouped and tagged. This allows me to get all content on the page in an XML structure, but of course I now have tagged duplicated info on a new layer, and the original untagged anchors on my original layer. It's workable but leaves me with too much manual cleanup afterwards.
My ultimate aim would be to get something as below, but anything more simple or elegant would be an option too of course
For each anchored object on the page (ok) -> Release the object (ok) -> ungroup the elements (ok) -> Tag all elements of the group using the paragraphStyle, and add them to a parent element <group> (ok but maybe this can be simplified) -> Regroup all elements (ok) -> anchor back to original position (some help needed here) -> next anchored object
but I have to admit I reached the limits of my extendScript know-how...
This is what I have, the TODO blocks is where I struggle. If anyone can fix or point me in the right direction already for any one of these I would be very gratefull
----------------------------------------------------------
function Duplicate_Grouped_Anchors(){
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var myItems = myDoc.allPageItems;
var foundGroupedItems = Array();
// loop through the page and find all inline objects (images) that are grouped / anchored and add them to the array
for(var i = 0; i < myItems.length; i++){
if(myItems.constructor.name=="Group" && myItems.parent instanceof Character){foundGroupedItems.push(myItems);}
}
// If we have some anchores let's start the magic...
if(foundGroupedItems.length > 0){
// create a new layer if it's not there yet where we can duplicate the anchored objects
try{var myDestLayer = myDoc.layers.add({name:"anchored"});} catch(myError){myDestLayer = myDoc.layers.item("anchored");}
// and loop through all the anchored objects...
for(var i = 0; i < foundGroupedItems.length; i++){
// for every object we copy the content on the same position on the new layer
var newDuplicate = foundGroupedItems.duplicate(myDestLayer);
newDuplicate.geometricBounds = foundGroupedItems.geometricBounds;
try {newDuplicate.graphics[0].geometricBounds = foundGroupedItems.graphics[0].geometricBounds;}catch(myError){}
// then we store all groupitems in an array and create a group parent tag, this will be added on top of the structure
var mgi = newDuplicate.pageItems.everyItem().getElements();
var lmgi = mgi.length;
// add group tag
try{myDoc.xmlTags.add("group");}catch(myError){exit}
// define new parent tag for all elements in group
var newParent = myDoc.xmlElements[0].xmlElements.add({markupTag:"group"});
// ungroup so all can be tagged
try {newDuplicate.ungroup()} catch (myError){};
// And we loop through all the items.
for(y=0; y<lmgi; y++)
{
// If it's an image we fit the content to the frame and add an image tag
if( mgi
.constructor.name == "Rectangle") {
var tfg = mgi
.allGraphics; var tfglg = tfg.length;
// loop through all the graphics
for(j=0; j<tfglg; j++)
{
// TODO : Fix fit option, should become exact same position as on original layer
tfg
.fit(FitOptions.CONTENT_TO_FRAME); //Add tag to element
try{myDoc.xmlTags.add("Image");}catch(myError){exit}
try{myDoc.xmlElements[0].xmlElements.add({markupTag:"Image", xmlContent:tfg
})}catch(myError){exit} // TODO : Below works but might be not error proof enough ?
var lastElement = myDoc.xmlElements.item(0).xmlElements.lastItem();
try{lastElement.move(LocationOptions.AT_BEGINNING, newParent);}catch(myError){exit}
}
}
// If it's a Textframe we tag the content according the Paragraph Style used
if(mgi
.constructor.name == "TextFrame") {
var pgfs = mgi
.paragraphs; var lpgfs = pgfs.length;
for(j=0; j<lpgfs; j++)
{
var myParagraphStyle = pgfs
.appliedParagraphStyle; var myParagraphStyleName = myParagraphStyle.name;
var myXMLTagName = cleanTag(myParagraphStyleName);
try{myDoc.xmlTags.add(myXMLTagName);}catch(myError){exit}
try{myDoc.xmlElements[0].xmlElements.add({markupTag:myXMLTagName, xmlContent:pgfs
})}catch(myError){exit} var lastElement = myDoc.xmlElements.item(0).xmlElements.lastItem();
try{lastElement.move(LocationOptions.AT_BEGINNING, newParent);}catch(myError){exit}
}
}
}
myDoc.groups.add(mgi) ;
// TODO : copy the grouped object back to main layer, anchored onto original location
}
}
}
function cleanTag(s){
// Get rid of characters XML doesn't really like
var myXMLTagName = s.replace(/\ /gi, "_")
myXMLTagName = myXMLTagName.replace(/\[/gi, "")
myXMLTagName = myXMLTagName.replace(/\]/gi, "")
myXMLTagName = myXMLTagName.replace(/\./gi, "")
myXMLTagName = myXMLTagName.replace(/\!/gi, "")
myXMLTagName = myXMLTagName.replace(/\+/gi, "")
myXMLTagName = myXMLTagName.replace(/\|/gi, "");
return myXMLTagName;
}
Message was edited by: wokoman1234 -> added some script to make the request easier to digest
AdChoices