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Masoud Moghaddam
Masoud Moghaddam
Inspiring
December 21, 2023
Answered

How can I efficiently find and replace a word or phrase across multiple documents within a book file

  • December 21, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1585 views

Hi,

 

I have a book file consisting of over 300 documents, and I've realized the need to replace certain words and phrases with their corrected and modified versions. Going through the Find/Replace window for each document individually is time-consuming and tedious. Is there a way to automate this process for all documents in the book using a script or possibly GREP?

    Correct answer rob day

    You should be able to do it by storing the pairs in a nested array—the format would be:

    var array = [["search1", "change1"], ["search2","change2"],...]
     
    Maybe this works?
    //A nested array in this format [["search1", "change1"], ["search2","change2"],...]
var sa = [["indesign", "InDesign"], ["script panel","Script Panel"], ["graphic objects", "artworks"]]

searchBooks()

function searchBooks(){
    try {
        var b = app.activeBook
    }catch(e) {
        alert("No Open Books")
        return
    }  
    var bp = b.bookContents.everyItem().fullName;
    var d;
    for (i = 0; i < bp.length; i++) {
        d = app.open(bp[i]);
        
        for (var j = 0; j < sa.length; j++){
            grepSearch(sa[j][0],sa[j][1])
        };   
        d.close(SaveOptions.YES);
    }
}

/**
* Document Grep find and change 
* @ param f the find grep string 
* @ param c the change grep string
* @ return void 
*/
function grepSearch(f,c){
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = {includeFootnotes:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, includeMasterPages:true, wholeWord:false} 
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = f;
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = c;
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep( true )
}

    2 replies

    rob day
    Community Expert
    rob dayCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    December 21, 2023

    Hi @Masoud Moghaddam , For a simple text find and change you could try this—replace "Foo" and "Bar" with your find and change text. Should work at least back to CS6:

     

     

    var gf = "Foo"
var gr = "Bar"

searchBooks()

function searchBooks(){
    try {
        var b = app.activeBook
    }catch(e) {
        alert("No Open Books")
        return
    }  
    var bp = b.bookContents.everyItem().fullName;
    var d;
    for (i = 0; i < bp.length; i++) {
        d = app.open(bp[i]);
        grepSearch(gf,gr)
        d.close(SaveOptions.YES);
    }
}

/**
* Document Grep find and change 
* @ param f the find grep string 
* @ param c the change grep string
* @ return void 
*/
function grepSearch(f,c){
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = {includeFootnotes:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, includeMasterPages:true, wholeWord:false} 
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = f;
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = c;
    app.activeDocument.changeGrep( true )
}

     

     

    If you are using Grep strings, back slashes have to be escaped so, for example, to find multiple tabs this:

    "\t+"

    Needs to be this:

    "\\t+"

     

      P
      Community Expert
      Peter KahrelCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      December 21, 2023

      Nice one, Rob. Just one comment: it's more efficient to keep the two lines that set the find/change preferences and options outside the for-loop because you need to set them just once.

       

      P.

        rob day
        Community Expert
        rob dayCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        December 21, 2023

        Thanks Peter, you‘re right, no need for the grepSearch() function, which I usually use for stringing together multiple searches—not sure if @Masoud Moghaddam needs more than one search. This would be better for a single search:

         

         

        var gf = "Bar"
var gr = "Foo"

searchBooks()

function searchBooks(){
    try {
        var b = app.activeBook
    }catch(e) {
        alert("No Open Books")
        return
    }  
    var bp = b.bookContents.everyItem().fullName;
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = app.findChangeGrepOptions = null;
    app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = {includeFootnotes:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, includeMasterPages:true, wholeWord:false}
    var d;
    for (i = 0; i < bp.length; i++) {
        d = app.open(bp[i]);
        app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = gf;
        app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = gr;
        app.activeDocument.changeGrep( true )
        d.close(SaveOptions.YES);
    }
}

         

          Willi Adelberger
          Community Expert
          Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          December 21, 2023

          You need enough RAM.

          Open all documents and find & replace in all document.

          TᴀW
          TᴀW
          Legend
          December 21, 2023

          I recently had to do something similar, and it seems that InDesign will not open more than 99 documents at once. I have 32GB and there was plenty left.

          Quite dangerous actually, because I thought I had opened all documents and made the change in all of them. Afterwards I realized that only a fraction of the documents had been changed... I redid the operation to see what had happened, and that's where I get the number 99 from.

          rob day
          Community Expert
          rob dayCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          December 21, 2023

          I wonder if it is still memory related? I can run a script that creates over 99 new documents without a problem :

           

          var doc;
for (var i = 0; i < 115; i++){
    doc = app.documents.add();
};

           

          iMac with 72GB:

           

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