Apply Export Tag to Paragraph Style

[johnpredmore]

Hi,

I'm learning basic scripting and today I need to apply an export tag to a paragraph style for PDF export (see screenshot) across dozens of documents. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to use a script to automatize this time intensive process.

Does anybody have any tips on how to do that?

[Jongware · Accepted solution]

Look in to InDesign's DOM (Document Object Model), and specifically at Paragraph Style properties: ParagraphStyle

In there you can find a property "styleExportTagMaps" – a plural, probably because you can add multiple tags to a single style (?). Browsing to that, you get StyleExportTagMap , which, in turn, has a simple string property called "exportTag".

So if style points to a valid Paragraph Style, you can do this to add either a tagName or a className to it (only one of these; you must set the other to an empty string):

style.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType:"PDF", exportAttributes:'', exportTag:tagName, exportClass:className});

I've only used this with an exportType of "EPUB", but if I'm remembering correctly "PDF" is 'the' other option.

I haven't used those exportAttributes before. If you want to find out what it can contain, set a number of options in the user interface for a random style and then read out the styleExportTagMap of that style to see what values it holds.

[johnpredmore]

Thanks Jongware,

You pointed me in the right direction; here's what I came up with:

  var myDoc = app.activeDocument;

            // Body Text

            var body = myDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("Body Text");

                body.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "p", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                body.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "P", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});   

            // H1

            var h1 = myDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("H1");

                h1.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "h1", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                h1.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "H1", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});  

            // H2

            var h2 = myDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("H2");

                h2.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "h2", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                h2.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "H2", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});  

            // H3

            var h3 = myDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("H3");

                h3.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "h3", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                h3.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "H3", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});      

            // Tables - Body Text

            var tablesBody = myDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("Tables - Body Text");

                tablesBody.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "p", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                tablesBody.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "P", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""}); 

            // Student Version     

                // Student MS - Body Text

                var StudentBody = myDoc.paragraphStyleGroups.item("Student Version").paragraphStyles.item("Student MS - Body Text");

                    StudentBody.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "p", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                    StudentBody.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "P", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});     

                // Student Cover - H1

                var StudentCoverH1 = myDoc.paragraphStyleGroups.item("Student Version").paragraphStyles.item("Student Cover - H1");

                    StudentCoverH1.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "h1", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                    StudentCoverH1.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "H1", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});                   

                // Student Cover - H2

                var StudentCoverH2 = myDoc.paragraphStyleGroups.item("Student Version").paragraphStyles.item("Student Cover - H2");

                    StudentCoverH2.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "EPUB", exportTag: "h2", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});

                    StudentCoverH2.styleExportTagMaps.add({exportType: "PDF", exportTag: "H2", exportClass: "", exportAttributes: ""});                   

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

I have exactly the same problem. I can apply 'P', 'H1', 'H2', etc., but InDesign doesn't seem to recognize 'Artefact' as a valid exportTag for exportType 'PDF'!

[Pickory]

Artifact

🙂

Edited, maybe not 😞

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

Aha — that does seem to work! It doesn't throw an error, and scripting reveals that its value has indeed been set to 'Artifact':

var mySelection = app.selection[0];
var myParagraphStyle = mySelection.appliedParagraphStyle;
alert(myParagraphStyle.styleExportTagMaps[0].exportTag);

…yet it doesn't show up in user interface:

[Pickory]

Object export has it as Artefact.

[Jeremy bowmangraphics]

As far as I can tell, if a script creates a document, giving several paragraph styles the export tag 'Artifact', at first they all appear in Paragraph Style Options --> Export Tagging as '[Automatic]'. But as soon one of them is manually set to 'Artefact', the rest follow suit.

[Pickory]

It is odd.  I set the artifact tag on style 2. It reports to my script that it has been set, but it does not export to pdf.