Scripting Annotations

So maybe it could work... Here is the result of a preliminary "feasability study"

For the moment, I'm ignoring all lines except those defining an object. It seems to be pairs of

- popup object (containing a reference to next), usually at the outer boundary of your page

- annotation object -- text, strikeout, whatever -- on its correct place.

I'm ignoring the connection now, but perhaps I could add a line between the two.

Getting values out of the single lines is a bit of a hit-and-miss affair -- parentheses? slashes? values? text encoding? I'd have to think about that.

This scriptlet puts everything onto a single page, but the Page number is given in the annotations, so that oughta be a possibility.

Note that the measurements are in points and upside down (in true PDF style). For this to work, you really need an annotated PDF of exactly the same size as your ID document (which is not the case with this hardcoded test!).

I'll have to go over my own needs before continuing, as this seems a sizeable project (unless Harbs or Marc or Laurent or Robin or Dave S. or Peter K. or any other of our band of scripters sees "the challenge" in this!)

app.activeDocument.viewPreferences.horizontalMeasurementUnits = MeasurementUnits.POINTS;
app.activeDocument.viewPreferences.verticalMeasurementUnits = MeasurementUnits.POINTS;
myFile = File("D:/Temp/indesign cs4 sdk learning-indesign-plugin-development.fdf");
myFile.open("r");
while (myFile.eof == false)
{
  line = myFile.readln();
  // Expect "digit(s) digit(s) obj"
  var objline = line.match(/^\d+ \d+ obj/);
  if (objline == null)
    continue;
  // Expect "Rect bladibla"
  var rect = line.match(/<<\/Rect\[(\d+\.?\d*) (\d+\.?\d*) (\d+\.?\d*) (\d+\.?\d*)\]/);
  if (rect == null)
    continue;
  // convert to numbers :o|
  // vertically invert, while we're here
  rect[1] = Number(rect[1]);
  rect[2] = app.activeDocument.documentPreferences.pageHeight-Number(rect[2]);
  rect[3] = Number(rect[3]);
  rect[4] = app.activeDocument.documentPreferences.pageHeight-Number(rect[4]);
  
  subtype = line.match(/\/Subtype\/(\w+)/);
  switch (subtype[1])
  {
    case "Popup":
   frame = app.activeDocument.textFrames.add();
   frame.geometricBounds = [ rect[2], rect[1], rect[4], rect[3] ];
   headline = line.match(/\/Subj\(([^)]+)\)/);
   if (headline != null)
        frame.contents = headline[1];
      break;
    case "Text":
   frame = app.activeDocument.textFrames.add();
   frame.geometricBounds = [ rect[2], rect[1], rect[4], rect[3] ];
   contents = line.match(/\/Contents\(([^)]+)\)/);
   if (contents != null)
        frame.contents = contents[1];
      break;
    case "StrikeOut":
      line = app.activeDocument.graphicLines.add();
      line.paths[0].pathPoints[0].anchor = [ rect[1], (rect[2]+rect[4])/2 ];
      line.paths[0].pathPoints[1].anchor = [ rect[3], (rect[2]+rect[4])/2 ];
      line.strokeColor = app.activeDocument.swatches.item("Red");
      break;
  }
}
myFile.close();