Is it possible to find hyperlinks and apply a character style via GREP or script?

[~BarbaraT]

Hi -- Have a long document with an imported Word file many hyperlinks. Some of the hyperlinks lost their styling (mea culpa) after import. Ideally, I'd like to highlight all hyperlinks so I can scroll through and see which ones aren't styled correctly, but I'd setttle for a find/replace/GREP type search.

Found a script from from Peter Kharel that seems like it would highlight the links, but it didn't work for me in ID 2021 or ID 2022.

Alternately, is there a way to search via GREP? (Like an anchored object or table?)

Just wondering if something exists. TIA for any ideas.

[brian_p_dts]

A quick jsx would do it: 

var doc = app.activeDocument;
var hlts = doc.hyperlinkTextSources;
var cs = doc.characterStyles.itemByName("Your Style Name");
//note that if the style is in a group, this won't work
//you'd need a longer statement to get the correct style
var i = hlts.length;
while(i--) {
    hlts[i].appliedCharacterStyle = cs;
}

[~BarbaraT]

Thanks for this! Do I need to change some of the names above to fit my documents?

ie: doc.hyperlinkTextSources? and "Your Style Name"? 

[brian_p_dts]

Just "Your Style Name". Keep the quotes. 

[~BarbaraT]

The links are on different paragraph styles, nested a couple levels deep. Lead with something like, "../name/name/styleName " ?

[brian_p_dts]

The applied paragraph style and their groupings don't matter. What does matter is where the Character Style you want to apply is. Let's say the Character Style you want to apply is called "Links". If that style is in a top level Character Style Group called "Hypers", you'd change the var cs line to: 

var cs = doc.characterStyleGroups.itemByName("Hypers").characterStyles.itemByName("Links");

 If you the grouping is nested, then you nest the group call like so: 

var cs = doc.characterStyleGroups.itemByName("HypersLevel1").characterStyleGroups.itemByName("HypersLevel2").characterStyles.itemByName("Links");

Or, you could just temporarily copy your character style to the root panel and run my code. 

[brian_p_dts]

Sorry, in case I wasn't clear, originally, do all hyperlinks share the same style? Or can their style differ based on the paragraph they're in? 

[~BarbaraT]

There are two different character styles used on several different paragraph styles. Some links might have the wrong character style applied. Too bad we can't layer character styles. I'm trying to think of something they would all have in common to target with the script... 

[brian_p_dts]

Theoretically, you could check the paragraph style and apply the correct character style based on the pstyle applied. But that's bordering on custom development. 

[Peter Spier]

Hey Brian,

Thanks for this. I'm working on a project right now that can use this and it should save me a bunch of time.

[Grzegorz23278507ka22]

This is brillian, thank you!!!

Could you kindly modify it in a way, that it will only apply to 

(1) selected text frame with connections

(2) selected text

Thank you very much!

[rob day]

Hi @~BarbaraT , Did the hyperlinks’ Character Styles get broken (set to [None]), or were they just overridden?

[~BarbaraT]

Could be some of both. I think I inadvertantly deleted a style that didn't appear to be used, but was. (The Word doc came in with a few different character styles that turned out to be for hyperlinks.) I also had import-mapped some character states to styles -- so maybe that overwrote some of them?

[rob day]

Could be some of both.

If it was just one style you deleted, then maybe clear the overrides for all of the hyperlink’s applied styles and only apply your style to hyperlinks with "[None]" applied?:

var doc = app.activeDocument;
var hlts = doc.hyperlinkTextSources;
var cs = doc.characterStyles.itemByName("Your Style Name");
var i = hlts.length;
while(i--) {
    if (hlts[i].appliedCharacterStyle.name != "None") {
        hlts[i].clearOverrides(OverrideType.CHARACTER_ONLY)
    } else {
        hlts[i].appliedCharacterStyle = cs;
    }
}

[~BarbaraT]

Unfortunately, didn't work for me. Made several kinds of overrides on a test paragraph, including one set to "none".  Would be difficult to implement on the actual document, since there are different type weights/italics involved. 

[rob day]

Could you share the document or some sample pages?

[~BarbaraT]

Sample page here. If I understand correctly, all the links would change to the style in the jsx file (link-blue-bold).  Which wouldn't really work for this current project, but could be handy for something in the future.

[rob day · Accepted solution]

Hi Barbara, Would this work?:

var doc = app.activeDocument

//hyperlink character styles
var rcs = doc.characterStyles.itemByName("link-blue-regular");
var bcs = doc.characterStyles.itemByName("link-blue-bold");
var ics = doc.characterStyles.itemByName("link-blue-RegularItalic");

var hlts = doc.hyperlinkTextSources;
var t;
var i = hlts.length;
while(i--) {
    
    t = hlts[i].sourceText.characters[0].appliedFont
    if (t.name == "Rival	Regular") {
        hlts[i].sourceText.appliedCharacterStyle = rcs
    } 
    if (t.name == "Rival	Bold") {
        hlts[i].sourceText.appliedCharacterStyle = bcs
    }
    if (t.name == "Rival	Regular Italic") {
        hlts[i].sourceText.appliedCharacterStyle = ics
    }
}

Before:

After:

[~BarbaraT]

Brilliant! Yes this works even after throwing in a nested style and other variations at it. Many thanks!