How to Search without opening INDD file?

[Mr1857]

How to search text in indd files, without opening it? 

have atleast 50 files, & need to search words in the file, everytime I have to open all 50 indd files, and then using its find dialog box (search all documents) i get my work done. but opening 50 files every time is very much crazy. Do we have any solution for that? 

[Mike Witherell]

https://markzware.com/pagezephyr-search/how-to-search-indesign-files-content-search-pagezephyr-searc...:

[leo.r]

https://markzware.com/pagezephyr-search/how-to-search-indesign-files-content-search-pagezephyr-searc...:

By @Mike Witherell

That app - PageZephyr - has been discontinued though... I don't know if any current Markzware product offer this functionality.

[John D Herzog]

I think this is the version that is not discontinued.

https://markzware.com/idmarkz/how-to-preview-indesign-files-idmarkz-indd-file-processing-macos-app/

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Mr1857

If you work on a PC - you could use my ID-Tasker - not free but extremely powerful. 

Whatever you are searching for, you can save as a Task and then run it on any number of files - 10, 50, 100, 1000 - it doesn't matter. You can also run it overnight...

[John D Herzog]

Does the ID-Tasker run outside of InDesign?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Does the ID-Tasker run outside of InDesign?

By @John D Herzog

No. 

Or rather - depends on what would you like it to do. 

I started with "ID" prefix - but IDT can also directly connect to Photoshop, Illustrator, WORD, Excel, PowerPoint, CorelDRAW, or any other software that can be controlled through VBA, local & online databases, FTP, send/check emails, etc. - pretty much anything you can do on a PC with Windows... 

It could also do things that are available in e.g. Total Commander - file operations - or I can implement pretty much any functionality you would need. 

So if the encoding of the diacritics is constant in the INDD files... IDT could first do a "binary search" - that probably would be much faster - then open only those INDD files that "meet the criteria" - and perform final search and extraction.

You can check one of the past threads, where someone had to check 11000 files - 1.3TB of files ...  I can open INDD file, check if InDesign is "not responding" = corrupted INDD file, "kill" InDesign, restart it and continue on the next file... 

Not possible to do it in JavaScript...

[John D Herzog]

The reason I asked was because it looked like the OP wanted to do the search outside of InDesign, although I don't know if that is true anymore with subsequent posts.

As to your tool, Nice! It looks to be pretty powerful. For the Mac side, you would definitely need to have it made with Applescript. To my knowledge, it is just as integrated if not more so than VB is with Windows. If you could ever find someone to port it over for you, I'm sure you would find a lot of people willing to buy it.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

As to your tool, Nice! It looks to be pretty powerful. 

By @John D Herzog

Thanks.

IDT can do things that JS / plugin - real plugins - developers can't even dream of doing... At no point I'm saying that I'm better at scripting than others - it's just the functionality and versatility that I can achieve on Windows. 

About the version for Mac - as long as you can connect a dedicated PC to your network - you can still use IDT "indirectly" - WatchedFolders Mode. (of course user needs to make sure he is not breaking eula) 

There are so many options and different ways of using IDT... that I can blindly guarantee - even without knowing what is the workflow - that, as long as it's not an purely artistic workflow - at least 50% increase in productivity...

And if you can move some operations after hours / overnight - DataMerge, generating PDFs, etc. ... then it's like having two more employees for free... 

Even if someone needs to make a decision - "this image will look better on the left" or "let's use this image instead of that one" - IDT can still automate operations before and after - so user will have to make one or two clicks - instead of 15... 

You could even disconnect mouse and only use keyboard... do everything in IDT and use InDesign as a renderer. 

[leo.r]

Is your goal to just find out in which documents specific words are used? Then you can try to use the standard content search tools, such as Spotlight on Mac or similar tools on Windows. (Although, depending on the words, you may get some false positives if the words also have technical use in the raw file contents.) 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Is your goal to just find out in which documents specific words are used? Then you can try to use the standard content search tools, such as Spotlight on Mac or similar tools on Windows. (Although, depending on the words, you may get some false positives if the words also have technical use in the raw file contents.) 

By @leo.r

This will work ONLY for English - if there are diacritics...

= "jeśli"

= "że"

[leo.r]

This will work ONLY for English - if there are diacritics...

By @Robert at ID-Tasker

Oh yeah I'm sure there are quite a few issues with this method.

[Mr1857]

i work in arabic language, with diacritics, so will it help me out? 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

i work in arabic language, with diacritics, so will it help me out? 

By @Mr1857

Are you asking me or @leo.r ?

[Mr1857]

iam asking you, that will this tool help to find out words in arabic language also? because there are lots of diacritics in arabic language. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

iam asking you, that will this tool help to find out words in arabic language also? because there are lots of diacritics in arabic language. 

By @Mr1857

Can you send me an example file for testing - unfortunately, I don't have any files with Arabic texts - please click my nickname to send it on priv. 

[Mr1857]

 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Mr1857 

I'm talking about INDD file - not a screenshot.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Mr1857 

I have no idea if I've selected diacritic or not - but here is a screenshot:

Blue cell on the right is a black spot on the left in text.

[Mr1857]

can i ask you, what did u do? did u just search the 1st letter from my file? and the result come? what did u type? 

what should happen is - when i type - الحمد - the 1st letter from my file, then both letters (with diactrics and without diactrics) should be shown in your search, then only your ID tasker can give me the most out of it. or if you can give me some demo app, then i would really appreciate it.

iam really waiting for your positive reply, as i think i am very close to my requirements. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Mr1857 

You can download it for free - and free version will give you full "browsing" capability - what is blocked in the paid version is the BatchMode - processing all / selected results at once.

Unfortunately, right now you can't just "paste" your "الحمد" directly in the ID-Tasker's UI - but if you do initially Find&Change - Find only - in the InDesign's UI - then you can execute LOAD TEXT SEARCH Rule - or GREP - and you'll get all instances - like if you would do in the UI - except you'll get a list of all results - not as step-by-step:

- double click on the 1st found result:

- double click on the 2nd found result:

Or you could save phrases you would like to find - as a Task - and load them all at once when you open a different file - or execute on all files from a Folder / Server...

[Mr1857]

pls give me the link to download it, i will do it right now.

[Mr1857]

i will need a mac version - MacOS Sonoma V14.5, INDD version 2023. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

i will need a mac version - MacOS Sonoma V14.5, INDD version 2023. 

By @Mr1857

Unfortunately, as I've said in the first post - it's PC only...