Sort artboards by name

[timlogochair]

We have over 50 artboards in most of our documents.  Is there a way to sort the artboards as listed in the artboards panel by name via script?

[timlogochair]

Anyone have any ideas on this?

[Muppet_Mark-phjQ9l]

I don't think that there are any methods for doing this…

[timlogochair]

No way with actions, javascript, vb or any other means to automate this task? Holding out hope if anyone has any ideas J

[Muppet_Mark-phjQ9l]

Tim, artboards are pretty new the to AI the fact that script has access to any of this is nothing short of of a miracle… There are some things that have been about much longer and still no access… With artboards you can add() Remove() and Insert() plus get/set the active one… You can also rearrange but this is the actual location in terms of the document NOT the order positioning in the GUI palette.

[CarlosCanto · Accepted solution]

do you still need it? here's a script, it only works with numbers for now, it needs more work if there are alpha characters in the artboard names.

#target illustrator
// script.name = sortArtboardsNumericallyCS5only.jsx;
// script.description = reArranges the Artboards indexes (for now works with Numbers only)
// script.required = an open document with at least 2 artboards, CS5 only;
// script.parent = CarlosCanto; // 2/21/12;
// script.elegant = false;
var idoc = app.activeDocument;
var abs = idoc.artboards;
var abcount = abs.length; // save the artboard count
var absNames = []; // array to hold artboards names
for (i=0; i<abcount; i++) { 
    absNames = abs.name; // get all artboard names in an array
}
absNames.sort(function (a,b) { return a-b }); // sort Numerically
// duplicate all artboards, in order according to the sorted array
for (j=0; j<abcount; j++) { 
                        var newAB = idoc.artboards.add(abs.getByName(absNames).artboardRect); // duplicate AB, which one? go by the sorted array
            newAB.name = absNames; // rename artboard
}
// delete original set of artboards
for (k=abcount-1; k>=0; k--) {
        idoc.artboards.remove(k);
}

[timlogochair]

What a lifesaver! This is great…all of my artboards are named by numbers, so it’s absolutely perfect for our use.

Thanks so much!

[timlogochair]

I just ran into the 100 artboard limit, when I have a document with 51 or more artboards.  Because the script duplicates every artboard, it puts me over 100 temporarily and causes the script to fail.  I don't see a way around this at the moment, do you?

[CarlosCanto]

good point...let me think about it

[Muppet_Mark-phjQ9l]

Does this do it…?

#target illustrator
function sortArtboards() {
          if ( app.documents.length == 0 ) { return; }
          var i, obj, doc, count, list;
          doc = app.activeDocument;
          count = doc.artboards.length; // Original length
          doc.artboards.insert( doc.visibleBounds, count ); // At end
          app.redraw();
          list = Array();
          // All but the new one…
          for ( i = count-1; i >= 0; i-- ) {
                    obj = Object();
                    obj.abname = doc.artboards.name;
                    obj.abrect = doc.artboards.artboardRect;
                    //obj.abindex = i;
                    list.push( obj );
                    doc.artboards.remove( i );
          };
          list.sort( function ( a, b ) { return a.abname - b.abname } );
          //$.writeln( list.toSource() );
          for ( i = 0; i < count; i++ ) {
                    doc.artboards.insert( list.abrect, i );
                    doc.artboards.name = list.abname
          };
          doc.artboards[count].remove();
};
sortArtboards();

[timlogochair]

Works perfectly.  Thanks so much for the help!

[Muppet_Mark-phjQ9l]

Tim my guess was that this is just for PDF page order? You can however add this…

doc.rearrangeArtboards( DocumentArtboardLayout.GridByRow, 3, 144, true ); 

And it moves the artboards about in the doc too…

[timlogochair]

We’re very systematic. It was actually just so we can go to the same place on all of our hundreds of master files and get to the same product. Our artboards are all different sizes, and there are about 50ish of them, so this addition didn’t work. It said the re-arrangement would put artboards outside of the canvas range. Thanks again so much for your help, as always.

[Muppet_Mark-phjQ9l]

Yeah… I've seen one of your 50 artboard files… And doubted it would work there… It was of interest to me and my experiments on a test file though… may prove usefull to others to know…

[peters26969709]

Hi,

Just refreshing the thread. This script would be very useful for arranging Artboards by name!

[blastframe]

This script works for me.

#target illustrator

var doc = app.activeDocument;
var artboards = doc.artboards;
var artboard_count = artboards.length; // save the artboard count
var artboard_names = []; // array to hold artboards names

for (i=0; i<artboard_count; i++)
{
    artboard_names.push(artboards[i].name);
}

artboard_names.sort();

for (j=0; j<artboard_count; j++)
{ 
    var aname = artboard_names[j];
    var rect = artboards.getByName(aname).artboardRect;
    var newAB = artboards.add(rect); // duplicate AB, which one? go by the sorted array
    newAB.name = artboard_names[j]; // rename artboard
}

// delete original set of artboards
for (k=artboard_count-1; k>=0; k--)
{
    artboards.remove(k);
}