Creating Shapes and Text using Excel created files

[ic13400]

Hi,

I have little experience in Illustrator so excuse me asking a question that might be obvious, I would greatly appreciate a break down of the steps required to create shapes and text in Illustrator with a file created on Excel. I have researched this and tried it several times but I seem to be missing a vital step in the process.

I have dimensions of the rectangles in separate columns and text in another how do I combine this to look like this. I would also be interested in changing the font style of the text on Illustrator with an entry on the CSV file. Any ideas on this?

[o-marat]

The simplified algorithm:

• take a cvs file from the disk;
• reading the lines to create a two-dimensional array:

[
[width_0, height_0, txt_0], // line 0
// ...
[width_n, height_n, txt_n] // line n
]

• in the cycle to substitute elements of the array to a function to create objects

[akinuri]

Can you post your excel/csv file or an excerpt?

[Disposition_Dev]

/*Assuming the example image you posted, it would look a little bit like this.

//The CSV file:

x,y,height,width,text

50,50,100,200,text inserted here from file

50,250,50,100,other text from file

50,500,200,200,this one would make a square

//etc...

//The JavaScript*/

function writeFromCSV()
{
    var docRef = app.activeDocument;
    //define the location of the csv file
    // var path = "~/Path/To/CSV/file.csv";
    var path = "~/Desktop/";
    var theFile = new File(path + "test.csv");
    //"open" the file and save contents to variable
    theFile.open();
    var contents = theFile.read();
    theFile.close();
    //save array of lines from the csv split by line breaks
    var lines = contents.split('\n');
    //loop each line and perform the shape creation
    //initialize loop variable as 1 instead of 0 to disregard the title lines, (x,y,height,width,text)
    for(var a=1;a<lines.length;a++)
    {
        var shape = lines;
        //split the line by comma
        //*note* you may need an extra function here to handle the possibility that
        //the string you want to use inside the box contains a comma.
        var elem = shape.split(",");
        var x = elem[0]*1;
        var y = elem[1]*1;
        var h = elem[2]*1;
        var w = elem[3]*1;
        var txt = elem[4];
        var thisGroup = docRef.groupItems.add();
        thisGroup.name = "Group " + (a+1);
        var rect = thisGroup.pathItems.rectangle(x,y,w,h);
        var txtFrame = thisGroup.textFrames.add();
        txtFrame.contents = txt;
        // txtFrame.left = rect.left;
        // txtFrame.top = rect.top;
        var rectHCenter = rect.left + (rect.width/2);
        txtFrame.left = rectHCenter - (txtFrame.width/2);
        var rectVCenter = rect.top - (rect.height/2);
        txtFrame.top = rectVCenter - (txtFrame.height/2) + txtFrame.height;
    }
}
writeFromCSV();