InDesign Javascript convert text to table

Question

Hello,

I have a document where I have blocks of text that are supposed to become tables.

I have tabs (\t) to separate between colums and newline (\r) to separate between rows.

For the moment, I to to go through the document manually, select the text blocks and convert them to tables.

All the lines of text that are supposed to become tables have the paragraph tag "Body-for-Table".

In between there are other parts of text, such as headings, sub-headnings and so on.

The number of lines in each block of "Body-for-Table" can vary from one to 20 or so.

Is it possible to make a javascript that goes through the document and converts each text block "Body-for-Table" to a table? My Table Style is called "Table-pratiqué-etc".

Best regards from

Geir

rob day · Accepted Answer

Hi again Rob,I found out that if I put in a newline after each of the text blocks with para-tag "Body-for-Table" and give this new line another para-tag, such as "Body", for example, then the result comes out nicely.  Then, the various headings and sub-headings between the tables remain intact. If you can find a way around this, it would be marvellous. Cheers, Geir Got the sample from @Eugene Tyson —does this work?: //an array of texts with "Body-for-Table" para stylevar ra = getTextStyleSearch("Body-for-Table");var t, ln;//reverse loopfor (var i = ra.length-1; i > -1; i--){    try {        //get the characters without the last return        ln = ra[i].characters.itemByRange(0,ra[i].characters.length-2);        ln.convertToTable();    }catch(e) {}      }; /*** Search for a paragraph styles * @ param fp the name of a paragrah style to search for String* @ return result array*/function getTextStyleSearch(fp){    app.findTextPreferences = app.changeTextPreferences = app.findChangeTextOptions = null;    app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = fp;    return app.activeDocument.findText()}

rob day · Answer

Hi @geirb9262873 , Maybe something like this:

//an array of texts with "Body-for-Table" para style
var ra = getTextStyleSearch("Body-for-Table");

var t;
for (var i = 0; i < ra.length; i++){
    t = ra[i].convertToTable("\t","\r");
    
    //assign a table style here?

    //remove empty row at end?
    t.rows.lastItem().remove();
};   

/**
* Search for a paragraph styles 
* @ param fp the name of a paragrah style to search for String
* @ return result array
*/
function getTextStyleSearch(fp){
    app.findTextPreferences = app.changeTextPreferences = app.findChangeTextOptions = null;
    app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = fp;
    return app.activeDocument.findText()
}

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