Automatically generate text labels with name of shape

[TCull]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a way in Illuastrator to be able to add some text, automatically to hundreds of boxes/shapes on the basis of the name of the shape. The text would ideally be centered to it's corresponding shape. 

For example, to turn this...

In to this;

Am I missing something already existing? There are some mucky work arounds involving exporting .svgs of boxes and writing .svgs with text, but I feel there must be a way to do this all internally within illustrator but this seems the realm of some scripting, which is a bit beyond me!

Any thoughts?

[lambiloon]

Hi, you can use an action to make it and apply to your files...regards

[TCull]

Not sure this is possibile unfortunately - Actions recorder doesn't have the capability to grab shape names as far as I can tell. 

[Kurt Gold]

No, this cannot be done with an action.

A script or a custom plugin would be required.

[CarlosCanto · Accepted solution]

try this script, this version will name pathItems in a layer named "Layer 1" only

// label boxes
// https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator-discussions/automatically-generate-text-labels-with-name-of-shape/td-p/12987454

function main() {
    var idoc = app.activeDocument;
    var layer1 = idoc.layers["Layer 1"];
    
    var textLayer = idoc.layers.add();
    textLayer.name = "Text";
    
    var pItems = layer1.pathItems;
    var tframe, pItem;
    
    for (var a=0; a<pItems.length; a++) {
        pItem = pItems[a];
        
        tframe = textLayer.textFrames.add();
        tframe.contents = pItem.name || "Not Named";
        tframe.textRange.paragraphAttributes.justification = Justification.CENTER;
        
        tframe.position = [pItem.left + pItem.width/2 - tframe.width/2, pItem.top - pItem.height/2 + tframe.height/2]
    }
}

main();

[TCull]

CarlosCanto - that's excellent and does exactly what I was after. Thanks very much. Get in touch, I owe you a coffee/beer. 

[CarlosCanto]