InDesign's scripting capabilities

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Hi folks

I am currently researching about the scripting capabilities of InDesign. Actually I want to know whether I can run a script in InDesign to do a feature that is not supported by InDesign. For example I want to add character limit and format to a form field created in InDesign. But it is not possible in InDesign. Is there any way I can do it using scripts?

[Manan Joshi]

Generally scripting is used for automation of InDesign. Whether something can be done or not can be answered by looking at the InDesign DOM API and figuring out what is possible or not via scripting. For that start at the link given below

https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign-latest/#Application.html

Now if you find that scripting is lacking for your task then the final tool you can explore is creating C++ plugin for InDesign. This can do almost anything within the app. The only need is that it should have been exposed by the Adobe team for the 3rd party developers.

-Manan

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Thankyou for your reply

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

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Your example refers to the functionality of the interactive PDF. 

Can be done by injecting JavaScript code into the exported PDF - but needs to be done in Acrobat - AFTER exporting PDF. 

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Actually I wanted to do it within InDesign itself. Is there any way for that?

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Actually I wanted to do it within InDesign itself. Is there any way for that?

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No. 

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Thankyou for your reply 

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Is it possible to give formats and character limits for form field in acrobat using scripts by using the name of the text field as the base?

[leo.r]

There's FormMagic plug-in that can do more than what's built into InDesign. I don't know if it can do exactly what you want:

https://www.id-extras.com/products/formmagic/

[TᴀW]

FormMagic can't, but FormMaker can (both char limits and field formatting). Free for short forms.

https://www.id-extras.com/products/formmaker/

(But in fact, ultimately even FormMaker is relying on Acrobat scripting to achieve these things. There's no way of doing it in InDesign that I know of.)

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Thankyou for your reply

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Thankyou for your reply 

[rob day]

Hi @Praveena38872767xscr , You might want to ask in the Acrobat forum. Here is the Acrobat API—there is a Field object with a charLimit property:

https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/library/jsapiref/JS_API_AcroJS.html#charlimit

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Thank-you