Setting the bleed in AI via Javascript

Just writing a note about this one. This plugin worked on Illustrator CC 2019 on Mac OS X 10.14.4.

Instructions:

1. Download and unzip Bleed.aip.zip mentioned here (or clone from github and compile. fun.)

2. Place the resulting Bleed.aip plugin to folder /Applications/Adobe Illustrator CC 2019/Plug-ins.localized/Extensions

3. Write a driver Javascript as follows:

$ cat script.js
   alert (setBleed ( 51.0236 ));  // unit: pt; range: 0-72.0 

function  setBleed (n) {
       var  result = app.sendScriptMessage ( 'Bleed', 'Bleed' , n);
       return  result;
}

4. Start Illustrator

5. Select menu File -> Scripts -> Other Script ...

6. Select the script you wrote on step #3

All this information has been available on this thread or linked threads. However, the exact needed steps seemed to be a bit scattered, so I thought writing this down will save my effort next time I'm having this problem.

Great thanks to the guys who took the effort to produce this plugin!

I'm having trouble getting this function mentioned above to work (I marked where it fails) :

function setBleed(doc, bleed, newName){ 

  /*

    Thanks to moluapple.

    bleed in points

  */ 

  var opts = new IllustratorSaveOptions(); 

  opts.compressed = false; 

  opts.pdfCompatible = false; 

  doc.saveAs(File(newName), opts); 

  var f = app.activeDocument.fullName; 

  var contents; 

  f.open('r'); 

  contents = f.read(); 

  f.close(); 

  contents = contents.replace(/((\d{1,2}))(?= \/Real \(Bleed(Left|Right|Top|Bottom)Value\))/g, bleed); 

  f.open('w'); 

  f.write(contents); 

  f.close(); 

  app.activeDocument.close();

//THIS IS WHERE IT FAILS 

  app.open(f); 

  var opts2 = new IllustratorSaveOptions(); 

  opts2.compressed = true; 

  opts2.pdfCompatible = true; 

  app.activeDocument.saveAs(app.activeDocument.fullName, opts2); 

} 

Did this work for you? I couldn't get this to work, and I can't use a plug-in for my script since the script will eventually be run on someone else's computer. If this solution ended up working for anyone then I might keep toying around with it to see if I can get it to work. When I run it Illustrator says that the new file is in an unknown format and so won't load. I get this problem essentially anytime I try to write to an illustrator file.

Good news is that it's possible to implement for scripting any feature, offered by SDK(pixel calculation, dividing bezier curves, finding duplicates etc).

For example, you can write pixel calculation in plugin, make it available for scriptmessage. Then you just run, say, such a string:

colorTextString = app.sendScriptMessage ("PluginName", "Calculate_average", "");

and get average color for gradient object or rasterimage (in text string, but it's no problem to parse it).

Keep in mind, that sendscriptmessage can not only send information to plugin, but also receive.

Bad news: plugins are platform-dependent and currently I can compile for Win only.

Yes, problem is even setting it up for pdf export does absolutely nothing.

var dest = "~/Desktop/testme1.pdf";
var doc = app.activeDocument;
var myFile = new File(dest);
var saveOpts;
setSaveOptions();
saveFileToPDF(myFile);
function saveFileToPDF(myFile){
    var originalInteractionLevel = userInteractionLevel;      
    userInteractionLevel = UserInteractionLevel.DONTDISPLAYALERTS;   
    doc.saveAs(myFile,saveOpts);     
    userInteractionLevel = originalInteractionLevel;     
}
function setSaveOptions(){
    saveOpts = new PDFSaveOptions(); 
    saveOpts.compatibility = PDFCompatibility.ACROBAT5; 
    saveOpts.generateThumbnails = true; 
    saveOpts.optimization = true; 
    saveOpts.preserveEditability = true; 
    saveOpts.bleedOffsetRect = [2,2,2,2]; 
    saveOpts.trimMarks = true;
}

After this media box is the size of trim marks but the art is cropped to the Artboard size, (not +2).