Response of FontStyle in TextStyleRange when Grep Style is active

Thank you all for replies. I see that topic was discussed in some previous post and this is just the confirmation of what I bumped on.

Thank you also for suggestions. As you probably guess - the goal is specific parsing of content in InDesign and returning it into database (a workflow between editors and layouters in our editorial system (CMS) called StoryEditor). In our case we are just looking for styles "bold", "italic", "bolditalic" which are represented with regular html tags in our CMS.

This is just working all well, but one of our clients reported this and when investigating we found this issue which is understandable in a way. The only thing is that my expectation on TextStyleRange functions is that it will return the situation what you see on page in InDesign but in this very situation - obviusly not.

Our workaround  is that in situations like this - when we are applying grep or nested or something else - we are using either fonts or font styles that are not a part of styles "bold", "italic", "bolditalic"... and then the applied grep or nested styles are not returned in DB and on second update are applied again in InDesign.

Tnx to all!

Hi @mmargeta, you may find this useful.

I've written a function that "embeds" nested grep styles, so that they are no longer grep styles, but are just individually-applied character styles. You can give the function either a TextFrame or Text object, or a ParagraphStyle. See example 1 and example 2 for these different modes (uncomment/comment as needed).

After "embedding" you can see that the text will then have the expected textStyleRanges. If you don't want to embed the grep styles, but just interrogate the textStyleRanges, then you could run this function on a duplicate. Hope that makes sense. Here what I get before and after running script on my demo text in screenshot below:

myText.textStyleRanges.length = 1
myText.textStyleRanges.length = 22

Please let me know if you find any bugs. It's freshly written and largely untested.

- Mark

/**
 * Examples of "embedding" nested grep styles.
 * @author m1b
 * @discussion https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/response-of-fontstyle-in-textstylerange-when-grep-style-is-active/m-p/13950327
 */
function main() {

    var doc = app.activeDocument;

    /* 
        Example 1: remove grep styles from selected text 
        - Select some text first.
    */

    var myText = doc.selection[0];
    // $.writeln('myText.textStyleRanges.length = ' + myText.textStyleRanges.length);
    embedGrepStyles(myText);
    // $.writeln('myText.textStyleRanges.length = ' + myText.textStyleRanges.length);

    /*
        Example 2: embed grep styles and remove from a paragraph style
        - Will target all text with the paragraph style applied.
    */

    // var myStyle = doc.paragraphStyles.itemByName('MyStyleWithGrep');
    // if (myStyle.isValid)
    //     embedGrepStyles(myStyle);


};
app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Embed Grep Styles');

/**
 * Embeds nested grep styles, ie. converts grep
 * styles to individually-applied character styles.
 * @author m1b
 * @version 2023-07-25
 * @param {TextFrame|Text|ParagraphStyle} target - the target of this function.
 */
function embedGrepStyles(target) {

    var removed = false,
        found,
        expressions,
        styles;

    if (target == undefined)
        return;

    if (target.constructor.name == 'TextFrame')
        target = target.texts[0];

    if (target.constructor.name == 'ParagraphStyle') {

        expressions = target.nestedGrepStyles.everyItem().grepExpression;
        styles = target.nestedGrepStyles.everyItem().appliedCharacterStyle;

        removeNestedGrepStyles(target);
        removed = true;

        app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
        app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
        app.findGrepPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = target;

        found = getDocument(target).findGrep();

    }

    else if (!target.hasOwnProperty('nestedGrepStyles'))
        return;

    if (expressions == undefined) {
        expressions = target.nestedGrepStyles.everyItem().grepExpression;
        styles = target.nestedGrepStyles.everyItem().appliedCharacterStyle;
    }

    found = found || [target];

    for (var i = 0; i < found.length; i++) {

        if (!removed)
            removeNestedGrepStyles(found[i]);

        // do each grep change
        for (var j = 0; j < expressions.length; j++) {
            app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
            app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
            app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = expressions[j];
            app.changeGrepPreferences.appliedCharacterStyle = styles[j];
            found[i].changeGrep();
        }

    }

};

/**
 * Returns the document of a thing.
 * @param {*} thing - the thing to get the document from.
 * @returns {Document}
 */
function getDocument(thing) {

    while (
        thing.constructor.name !== 'Document'
        && thing.hasOwnProperty('parent')
    )
        thing = thing.parent;

    if (thing.constructor.name == 'Document')
        return thing;

};

/**
 * Removes all nested grep styles.
 * @param {ParagraphStyle|Text} target - the thing to remove from.
 */
function removeNestedGrepStyles(target) {

    for (var i = target.nestedGrepStyles.length - 1; i >= 0; i--)
        target.nestedGrepStyles[i].remove();

};

Edit 2023-07-26: improved getDocument function. Added screen recording and console output to improve understanding.

Hm.

One way out could be to export to HTML and inspect the <span> tags.

But that's a lot of effort.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Hi @mmargeta ,

you could look into the properties of every single character to find the difference.

But even that could fail if there are some GREP styles applied that trump each other in a circular way.

Have to look up a sample for this, but as I recall we had a discussion about this very case in the old InDesign Scripting Forum about ten years ago. ( Dirk Becker was there and also Marc Auret ) .

In the meanwhile also see into more recent forum threads like this one:

TextStyleRange bug ? CC 2023 v18
@Robert Tkaczyk , Feb 01, 2023

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/textstylerange-bug-cc-2023-v18/m-p/13547272

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )

Nope, that's not it. Recomposing makes no difference.

Call recompose() and look again.

While it usually works without explicit call, composition is a deferred task and might just not have reached your text.

Correct: formatting applied by nested styles (both grep and 'normal' nested styles) doesn't affect the textStyleRanges object. 

Not really sure what the solution is - or what all the script is you have is doing or your end goal. 

But off the top of my head not sure if this helps or not. But more examples and full explanation of what you need would be great.

var characterRange = myTextStyleRange.characters;
var firstCharacter = characterRange[0]; // Get the first character in the TextStyleRange

var actualFontStyle = {
  appliedFont: firstCharacter.appliedFont,
  fontStyle: firstCharacter.fontStyle,
  // Include other relevant font attributes if needed
};