Converting text to outline and then select it with javascript

[HoochShepherd]

So I was working on doing something in InDesign, and finally finished. The script works perfect, until its run on an Mac...

I am converting text to an outline, selecting everything on the page, and croping the page to fit the existing items on the page.

I believe the issue is that when run on a mac, the text converted to outline is no longer being seen as an item?

So, with that being said!!! Is there a way to convert a textFrame to an Outline and immediately have that conversion selected?

I will post my previous code in a reply in case that helps clarify.

Thanks in advance!

[HoochShepherd]

    var myDocument = app.activeDocument;

    //Set current page
    var currentPage = myDocument.pages[0];
        
    //Create outlines of text
    currentPage.textFrames.everyItem().createOutlines();

    //Select items on current page
    for (var j=0; j<currentPage.pageItems.length; j++)
    {
         currentPage.pageItems.everyItem().select();
    }
    //Get outer bounds of selection for resize
    var gb = app.activeDocument.selection[0].geometricBounds;
    //Resize
    currentPage.resize(CoordinateSpaces.INNER_COORDINATES,
       AnchorPoint.TOP_LEFT_ANCHOR,
       ResizeMethods.REPLACING_CURRENT_DIMENSIONS_WITH,
       [2000, gb[2]] );

[brianp311]

Not sure it would necessarily be a problem with Mac. Something different about the document perhaps (a different measurement setting)? If so, using [2000, gb[2]] may be causing an out of bounds exception. 

Best way to check is to wrap the whole codeblock in a try/catch statement, and alert the error on the catch: 

try {    
    var myDocument = app.activeDocument;

    //Set current page
    var currentPage = myDocument.pages[0];
        
    //Create outlines of text
    currentPage.textFrames.everyItem().createOutlines();

    //Select items on current page
    for (var j=0; j<currentPage.pageItems.length; j++)
    {
         currentPage.pageItems.everyItem().select();
    }
    //Get outer bounds of selection for resize
    var gb = app.activeDocument.selection[0].geometricBounds;
    //Resize
    currentPage.resize(CoordinateSpaces.INNER_COORDINATES,
       AnchorPoint.TOP_LEFT_ANCHOR,
       ResizeMethods.REPLACING_CURRENT_DIMENSIONS_WITH,
       [2000, gb[2]] );
} catch(e) {
   alert(e + " on line " + e.line);
}

Other potential error in the code I see is:

for (var j=0; j<currentPage.pageItems.length; j++)
{
   currentPage.pageItems.everyItem().select();
}

You don't need the for loop; everyItem().select() should select every item in one fell swoop. 

[HoochShepherd]

Thanks for the crazy quick reply!

So it's the same exact document from one machine to the next.  It's weird!!

Ok, I made the changes and will test tomorrow when I've got a mac in front of me.  I'll update, but in the end the only real change being made is the looped select. Honestly, I had that doing something different previously and never removed the loop.  Either way, not sure that could effect it directly but then again it shouldn't be OS specific.

[HoochShepherd]

No go here... Not that these things did clean my code, but they didn't fix the code..

[brianp311]

Did you add a try/catch block around the code. Did you get an error alert if so?

[HoochShepherd]

I did. No error.  It just isn't selecting the converted outlines.  It's wierd because i will do it on one layer, but not the other...

[SychevKA]

hi,
this line is error :

currentPage.textFrames.everyItem().createOutlines()

because textframe (maybe) enters the thread.

your way is make array and use loop, for example :

textframes = currentPage.textFrames.everyItem().getElements()
for(var i = 0; i < textframes.length; i++){
	try{textframes[i].createOutlines()}
	catch(e){}
}

and about resize ... 

you don't know what it is :

var gb = app.activeDocument.selection[0].geometricBounds

you should check the new page size to avoid any error.

good luck!

[HoochShepherd]

Let me try that as well.

[HoochShepherd]

No go...

[Nguyen Pham24083641x837]

if you can please help me convert jscript below to vsbscript. thank you so much

[HoochShepherd · Accepted solution]

So I've got it...

For some odd reason it was not selecting all on a mac. And on one layer the item I needed was at [0], on the other it was [1].

So since I know the the outlined text is always the lowest item, I did this.

            //Clear selection
            app.activeDocument.select(NothingEnum.NOTHING);
            //Select text for bounderies
            if(myDocument.layers[0].name == "1 LINE"){
                currentPage.pageItems.item(0).select();
            }
            else if(myDocument.layers[0].name == "2 LINE"){
                currentPage.pageItems.item(1).select();
            }
            else{
                alert("Document improperly formatted.");
                exit();
            }