ExtendScript and Indesign versions problem

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 4, 2021
3 replies
565 views

I wrote scripts for InDesign using the ExtendScript program. Today I found a bug in my scripts, which I wanated to debug. But the current version of ExtendScripts does not recognize the current version of InDesign (2021), so I cannot run in debug mode. I thought that I'd simply go back to InDesign's previous version to reproduce the problem, but there's been a file format update and InDesign2020 will not open a file that has been in InDesiogn 2021! So there's no way I can reproduce and debug the problem starting with the instance that got my attention. Why doesn't ExtendScript get updated so it can deal with InDesign 2021?? I did check and there is no update for ExtendScript.

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Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

Which OS do you use? Mac or Windows? On Windows, the ESTK continues to work as before. On the Mac, it stopped working on the latest OS because, as Manan mentioned, the Mac OS stopped support for 32-bits programs 9like the ESTK).

So it's an OS issue, not an InDesign one.

P.

M

Manan Joshi

Community Expert

Extendscript will no longer be updated, the main reason is that the latest MAC OS does not support 32-bit applications and ES is 32 bit so rather than porting it to 64 bit Adobe decided to go with VS Code. Adobe has developed and released a plugin for VSCode which can be downloaded from the following link, using it you can debug your scripts for different Adobe applications

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Adobe.extendscript-debug

On another note, if you have ES installed on your machine then it is able to debug the latest version of InDesign just fine. I use it every day and don't face any issues. Can you explain what issue you are facing when you say "the current version of ExtendScripts does not recognize the current version of InDesign (2021), so I cannot run in debug mode"

-Manan

M

Mike Bro

Legend

Hello,

you could try exporting a .idml file from the 2021 file to open in 2020 for testing\debugging.

See the links below about ExtendScript no longer getting updated, Adobe now has a ExtendScript plugin for Visual Studio Code.

https://medium.com/adobetech/the-future-of-extendscript-development-a-vscode-plugin-2d8d0172a357

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Adobe.extendscript-debug

Did you try to change the target version.......