IDCS6 [Mac] - script to draw a rectangle that is the size of the bleed box

[Colin Flashman]

Hello there. I'm sure this is very easy to do but what i'm not sure of is how to get the size of the rectangle to be the size of the bleed box (from the top left to the bottom right) given that this script would be run on dozens of files that are all different page sizes.

Is there also any way to get the script (as the last thing it does) to launch the place command?

colly

[Jump_Over]

Hi,

If we talk about a single page this rectangle geometricBounds are:

     page.bounds[0] - documentBleedTopOffset,

     page.bounds[1] - documentBleedInsideOrLeftOffset,

     page.bounds[2] + documentBleedBottomOffset,

     page.bounds[3] + documentBleedOutsideOrRightOffset.

But you have to decide how to calculate it in case of spread (facing pages)

It could switch ruler origin to RulerOrigin.SPREAD_ORIGIN and modify a code:

     spread.pages[0].bounds[0] - documentBleedTopOffset,

     spread.pages[0].bounds[1] - documentBleedInsideOrLeftOffset,

     spread.pages[-1].bounds[2] + documentBleedBottomOffset,

     spread.pages[-1].bounds[3] + documentBleedOutsideOrRightOffset.

Another decision to made is what to do if there are various sizes of pages inside one spread

to launch a place command use:

app.menuActions.itemByID(113409).invoke();

(ID taken from CS5 Windows version)

rgds

Jarek

[Colin Flashman]

Thanks for that. I was able to come up with this:

main();

function main(){

    mySnippet();

    myTeardown();

}

function mySnippet(){

var myDocument = app.activeDocument;

var myPages = myDocument.pages;

var myPage = myPages.item(0);

var myBounds = myPage.bounds;

var myY1 = myBounds[0] - 5;

var myX1 = myBounds[1] - 5;

var myY2 = myBounds[2] + 5;

var myX2 = myBounds[3] + 5;

    var myRectangle = myPage.rectangles.add({geometricBounds:[myY1, myX1, myY2, myX2]});

app.menuActions.itemByID(113409).invoke();

}

function myTeardown(){

}

It works well, with two exceptions:

1. the bleed in this script will always be 5. depending on the units used, this could be points or millimetres...; and
2. the rectangle that is made is always the same fill and stroke as the fill/stroke in the palette at the time of running the script. is there any way of making the fill/stroke become none (apart from setting the fill/stroke to none prior to running the script)?

[Jump_Over]

Hi,

In case of 2nd exception:

var myRectangle = myPage.rectangles.add({
     geometricBounds:[myY1, myX1, myY2, myX2],
     fillColor: app.swatches.item("None"),
     strokeWeight: 0
     });

Jarek

[Colin Flashman]

Close...

I substituted line 20 of the script to:

var myRectangle = myPage.rectangles.add({geometricBounds:[myY1, myX1, myY2, myX2], fillColor:myDocument.swatches.item("None"), strokeWeight: 0});

fillColor: app.swatches.item("None")

kept erroring in cs6;

fillColor:myDocument.swatches.item("None)

did the trick though.

now how to solve riddle part 1... hmmm....

[Jump_Over]

Hi,

In case of exception no 1:

Why dont you use documentBleed(....)Offset properties?

(see post 1)

Jarek

[Colin Flashman]

hello again.

because that line of code didn't work. might in cs5, but not cs6. instead this error occurs:

[Jump_Over · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I made it in a "too much" short way, sorry.

myDocument.documentPreferences.documentBleedTopOffset;

above should works if "myDocument" is your doc. Similar with other properties...

Jarek

[Colin Flashman]

wonderful! the script now does what it needs to do. thank you for your help!

[Colin Flashman]

not to complicate this script any further, but the script I made is perfect if the file is one page long. However, if I have a 20 page file and I want to execute this script on one the current page, where would I need to change the script? I figure it's the myPages bit, but unsure.

colly

[Jump_Over]

Hi,

I am not sure finally how your script looks like...,

but you could change this line:

myPage = app.layoutWindows[0].activePage;

to refer to the current displayed page.

Jarek

[Colin Flashman]

that did the trick! thank you very much.