• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

Conditional Formatting to shapes from CSV text

Community Beginner ,
Aug 01, 2022 Aug 01, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi all!

 

I wonder if you can help me?

I'm trying to find a way of changing the colour of shapes in inDesign based on what text it contains. I want each shape to be Green if it contains "safe", and red if it contains "unsafe". 

 

I know inDesign doesn't support native conditional formatting, so I thought a script would be the best way forward?

 

I'm running CC2022, if that makes any difference 🙂

 

If someone could help me with that, I'd really appreciate the help! 🙂

TOPICS
How to , Import and export , Scripting , Type

Views

613

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Hi @KuriousKatie ,

if the shapes were text frames that contain the words "safe" or "unsafe" you could do this with GREP Find/Change and apply a certain paragraph style that is formatted with Paragraph Shading with a huge offset that will be cut to the text frame's edges.

 

GREP Find pattern could be:

^safe\Z

Change to paragraph style "Safe" with that paragraph shading with color "Green".

 

GREP Find pattern could be:

^unsafe\Z

Change to paragraph style "Unsafe" with that paragraph shading with c

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Community Expert ,
Aug 01, 2022 Aug 01, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

You didn't specify that you were dealing with text paths or cells, so this would do it for all text frames in the doc. Assumes the swatches are named "Green" and "Red" respectively. 

var doc = app.activeDocument;
var green = doc.swatches.itemByName("Green");
var red = doc.swatches.itemByName("Red");
var apis = doc.allPageItems;
var i = apis.length;
var saferx = /safe/gi;
var unsaferx = /unsafe/gi;
while (i--) {
   if (apis[i] instanceof TextFrame) { 
        if (apis[i].contents) { 
             if (unsaferx.test(apis[i].contents)) { 
                  apis[i].fillColor = red;
             } else if (saferx.test(apis[i].contents)) { 
                  apis[i].fillColor = green;
             }
        }
   }
}

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 01, 2022 Aug 01, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Sorry, my apologies 🙂

The words will be within text paths inside of the shapes.

 

Just to be sure, I need to make sure there are defined colour swatches with "green" and "red" before I run this script? 🙂

 

Just on my commute to work, will try this script when I get in 👍 fingers crossed!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 01, 2022 Aug 01, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Capital Red and Green. Text paths spanning multiple shapes may require finessing. Let us know

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Right okay.. So I've gotten to work, added those swatches (with captial Red and Green) and tested out the script - but it's came up with an error 😞

 

Any idea?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

@KuriousKatie, you must save the script as a plain text document (.txt), not rich text format (.rtf). - Mark

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I thought a script file needed to be saved a a .jsx file?

Sorry, I'm a newbie to scripting 🙂

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Oh yes. So whichever program you used to save the script (eg. NotePad, or TextEdit) you must choose plain text for the format and also give it a .js or .jsx extension.

- Mark

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Just as a side note, it might be a sensible time to use Object Styles for "Safe" and "Unsafe", and the script would just apply either object style. That way, you can configure all attributes of the shapes' appearance very easily. - Mark

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

That sounds like a good idea - would that need much more adding to the script to enable that?

However, nothing else needs to be changed on the shapes, only the colour 🙂

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi @KuriousKatie ,

if the shapes were text frames that contain the words "safe" or "unsafe" you could do this with GREP Find/Change and apply a certain paragraph style that is formatted with Paragraph Shading with a huge offset that will be cut to the text frame's edges.

 

GREP Find pattern could be:

^safe\Z

Change to paragraph style "Safe" with that paragraph shading with color "Green".

 

GREP Find pattern could be:

^unsafe\Z

Change to paragraph style "Unsafe" with that paragraph shading with color "Green".

 

From my German InDesign 2022:

GREP FindChange for unsafe.PNG

 

After the change some text selected where the new paragraph style is applied:

CondFormatting-GREP-FindChange-UnsafeTextSelected-1.PNG

 

CondFormatting-GREP-FindChange-UnsafeTextSelected-2.PNG

 

Note:

Unfortunately you cannot do this with a GREP Style, because an applied character styles's formatting like underline cannot be restricted to the shape of the text frame.

 

Download my test document from my Dropbox account and look into the paragraph styles:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8a48qhs54vpvq3z/ConditionalFormattingShapes-GREP-FindChange-2022.indd?dl=1

 

Hm, but hold on, you said:

"The words will be within text paths inside of the shapes."

 

If the text path (or better a text frame) is pasted inside another shape you could apply a paragraph style with some GREP Styles and the applied underline stroke of the GREP Styles will be restricted by the path of the outer shape!

 

See page 2 of my test file where I pasted a text frame inside the shape that either contains the word "safe" or "unsafe".

The applied paragraph style has two GREP Styles that apply either character style "Safe" or character style "Unsafe" depending on the contents of the frame. Make sure that the text frame is as wide as the shape or wider; I have set the justification of the paragraph to Full Justified so that the applied underline is as wide as the text frame.

 

On page 2 we have a graphic frame that contains a text frame with the word "safe":

 

Safe-Unsafe-GREPStylesApplied-2.PNG

Below the text frame outside of the shape to show the formatting of its text:

Safe-Unsafe-GREPStylesApplied-1.PNG

 

The character style "Safe":

Safe-Unsafe-GREPStylesApplied-3.PNG

 

The GREP Styles of the applied paragraph style:

Safe-Unsafe-GREPStylesApplied-4.PNG

 

So I think, you'll find your solution on page 2 of my test document.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thank you for your help Uwe 🙂

That is such a brilliant solution!

I've added it to mine to see how we can incorporate it, however I have noticed that it doesn't seem to work when populating via a csv data merge. Only seems to work when manually inputting the words. Very strange, as the words are definitely there.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi @KuriousKatie ,

I suspect that the GREP Style's pattern is the problem.

 

Just try a pattern only with:

safe
unsafe

If that will not help, please share the template document for that data merge.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I've put the test file onto my google drive for you to take a look at - if you don't mind 🙂

In there is the test csv file I am using for the data merge also.

 

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1G189TpdQ2Cd_US10Zmry4udyeCxiiwQl?usp=sharing

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It would not work in preview mode of DataMerge; only after you've executed the merge. 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Doesn't seem to work even after the data merge for me 😞

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

They're showing for me: 

brianp311_0-1659446724534.png

 

You sure the merge executed successfully on your end? 

 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi @KuriousKatie ,

look into your data source file.

 

The names there like "safe" or "unsafe" must match exactly the GREP pattern.

 

You had "Safe" and "Unsafe" with a capital character at the beginning in your data source; my GREP Styles pattern use "safe" and "unsafe" with a lower case at the beginning. Either change the GREP Style or the data source CSV file so that GREP pattern and contents match exactly. Then a data merge is working as expected.

 

Here my template document for a data merge with an applied paragraph style where the GREP Style pattern match your data source CSV file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/h1w1dj6n6xo2yh4/DataMerge-Template-SafeUnsafe.indd?dl=1

 

The merged document here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kbkn8qc6nx16b48/DataMerge-Template-SafeUnsafe-MERGED-DOCUMENT.indd?dl=1

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 02, 2022 Aug 02, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Ah PERFECT!

You've smashed it right out the park! 😄

(So sorry for a stupid query there, that's fixed it right away, and works even on preview mode with the data merge now 🙂

 

Absolutely brilliant, thank you so much for all of your help!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Aug 10, 2022 Aug 10, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I have another query, if anyone can help me? 🙂

 

Is there any way in inDesign to show/hide certain specified elements on the page, if a certain word in one element is present?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Aug 17, 2022 Aug 17, 2022

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

See threads listed below:

 

Show/Hide certain elements on page, when certain text is visible in specified area
KuriousKatie, Aug 10, 2022

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/show-hide-a-group-of-items-based-on-whether-a-wo...

 

Nearly same title, different thread:

Show/Hide a group of items based on whether a word from a data merge is present in that group.
KuriousKatie, Aug 16, 2022

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/show-hide-a-group-of-items-based-on-whether-a-wo...

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

 

EDITED. Both titles were not exactly the same. Corrected that.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines