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williams25900102
Participant
November 9, 2023
Question

InDesign placement of excel files uses system defined regional format settings

  • November 9, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 771 views

Is there a way to override this behavior in either extendscript or sdk?

 

It would be great to either override this behavior or make InDesign reload the regional format on the system using some function.


The reason for request:

  • When placing excel files, InDesign uses the systems regional format settings for e.g. thousand separators
    • 123,000 (in my excel file) would become (123 000) when placed if my regional format were to be set to Swedish (Sweden)
    • 123 000 (in my excel file) would become (123,000) when placed if my regional format were to be set to English (USA)

 

The only workarounds that I have found are:

  1. find/replace after placement, but would be quite complex so I'd prefer a better solution than this
  2. relaunch the application after changing the regional format (not ideal)

 

Thanks for any feedback!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    Willi Adelberger
    Community Expert
    Willi AdelbergerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 10, 2023

    I have the problem with date formats. I do following workaround. I bring the Excel cells in the correct format to Word and import the Word file. It goes flawless. 

    W
    williams25900102Author
    Participant
    November 10, 2023

    While that seems like a good workaround, it doesn't seem to cover my scenario with more advanced example documents.

    My desired solution for what I am trying to accomplish is to:

    1. Get InDesign to acknowledge my regional format settings have been updated without re-launching the application
    2. Be able to provide InDesign with regional format settings instead of referring to the system defined regional format

     

    The 2nd option would be the most desireable, but I suppose both of those options would be feature requests.

    Is there an appropriate forum to request such things? (sorry i'm new to the community)
    Is there a way to get in touch with Adobe developers?

    Thanks!

    W
    williams25900102Author
    Participant
    November 10, 2023

    Just incase my description was not clear, I have attached 2 screen recordings and a sample excel file to demonstrate the scenario:

    Colin Flashman
    Community Expert
    Colin FlashmanCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 10, 2023

    Not sure if this makes a difference - try this script from Luis Corullon: https://corullon.com.br/scripts/product/switch-indesign-interface-language/

    I'm familiar with the issue as CSV files generated from excel - usually from europe - use semicolons as delimiters, not commas - it's something that had interfered with a script of mine. Full write-up is here: https://colecandoo.com/2022/05/16/to-be-or-csv-that-is-the-delimiter/

    If the answer wasn't in my post, perhaps it might be on my blog at colecandoo!
    Colin Flashman
    Community Expert
    Colin FlashmanCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 10, 2023

    Unfortunately, switching the indesign interface language had no effect. It seems that InDesign always uses what is defined for your regional format.

    You can see all of the values in Registry Editor: 

    Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International


    Darn.

    Only other solution I could think of would be to use a GREP style or nested style to turn the comma into a no fill/no stroke character so it couldn't be seen e.g. 123,456 becomes 123 456 - the comma is still there, but because the character style assigned to the GREP/Nested style had no fill or stroke, it wouldn't be visible. Unfortunately, this only goes one way - from USA to Swedish formatting.

    If the answer wasn't in my post, perhaps it might be on my blog at colecandoo!
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