Script to convert all text to Variable/Objects

[Henry Solis]

Hi all,

I am looking for a script that would add variable/objects to all the text on the same layer of an illustrator file.

[CarlosCanto]

check the script in this thread, it does exactly that. It creates variables and binds them to each text frame in the active layer

https://community.adobe.com/t5/illustrator/batch-creation-of-variables/m-p/6078151?page=1#M224180

[Henry Solis]

Thanks Carlos,

I ran that script it does add the "variable" but does not add "objects".

Is there a step I am missing? 

[CarlosCanto]

what do you mean by objects? please show screenshots

[Henry Solis]

Using the script Variables are added, but objects section remains blank.

When the Variable is done manually the text is visible in the object area. Also, is the object area needed for when you export the variables.xml?

I hope this makes sense. Thanks again for your help.

 

[CarlosCanto]

I see, I'm not sure what's happening. I'm getting this

[Henry Solis]

I tried running the script with just plain text boxes similiar to your example and I am still getting the same results "objects" section does not add the text. 

[Henry Solis]

After some troubleshooting, script is working now!

[CarlosCanto]

what was the issue?

[Henry Solis · Accepted solution]

I re-copied and re-saved the script and it works now.

Now that i have the .xml file with all the text variables, how can i replace the text with translations, using a .csv file? Can the .xml with the variables outlined be converted to a spreadsheet format? 

[Silly-V · Accepted solution]

Yes, actually it can - using the still-existing handy ExtendScript XML feature.
You can use XML inside the JSX file like this sample snippet:

#target illustrator
function test(){
	function getScriptProperties(node){
		var propObj = {};
		var propertiesNode = node.children("properties"), propsArr, propAmt, propName, thisProp;
		if(propertiesNode != ""){
			propsArr = propertiesNode.children();
			propAmt = propsArr.length();
			for (var i = 0; i < propAmt; i++) {
				thisProp = propsArr[i];
				propName = thisProp.name();
				if(propName != ""){
					propObj[propName] = propsArr[i].toString().trim();
				}
			}
			return propObj;
		}
		return null;
	};
    var z = "<root><apples></apples><properties><prop1>Hello</prop1><prop2>World</prop2></properties></root>";
    var myXml = XML(z);

    alert(getScriptProperties(myXml).toSource());
}
test();

This feature is called "E4X", and this snippet illustrates a sample custom procedure which uses some of the E4X functions such as 'node.children()'. It will work with a simple xml string as above, but not with an xml file containing Illustrator's variables. The variables file contains xml namespaces with colons:

    <v:sampleDataSets  xmlns="&ns_custom;" xmlns:v="&ns_vars;">

      <v:sampleDataSet  dataSetName="Data Set 1">

For this, there may be proper E4X methods to deal with that somehow, but I've never been aware of such. If anyone knows, please post.
The workaround could be to process the xml string as text first, replacing any text which causes an error when attempting to use the XML() function.
Otherwise, to create a CSV without working on the text is a very slow and not-recommended way of cycling each dataset in the document and obtaining all the text variables from the variable textbox's contents.

[Henry Solis]

I've been using the script provided by @CarlosCanto for the last few years and it worked great. But today I started getting this erros message when trying to save the Data Set.

The filter cannot complete because of an unkown error.

@CarlosCanto can you please help out. Thanks

[Henry Solis]

It looks like its the new illustrator version (26.3.1) causing the issue, I uninstalled it and installed the older version (26.2.1) and the script works fine again. Is there something in the script we can update to make it compitable?

[CarlosCanto]

I'm on 26.2.1, I'll troubleshoot when I upgrade...but I'm in a crunch.

[Henry Solis]

@CarlosCanto Glad to connect with you again, hope you are doing well.

It is an illustrator issue with the new version, I tried to save a variable library without using the script at all and I still get the same error message. 

[CarlosCanto]

oh ok, then if doing it manually shows the same issue, the script is not the problem. It is possible something got broken in the new version.