Multiple record data merge into paragraph styles-applies the wrong style

@7163524 – maybe you already did it manually…

But, here I'm back with a script, that is able to thread all the text frames of the datamerge together.

Run it AFTER you eliminated: the XML-tags, the <FEFF> special characters and the empty paragraphs.

A fair warning: It's not totally "watertight", but should work, if:

1. You want to thread all text frames on pages in a document by order of their creation; page by page!

Here I simply assume, that the datamerge is generating the text frames page by page from left to right, top to bottom.

So check the results!

2. There are NO text frames, that are already threaded together.

As a bonus I add a paragraph style to the document that is applied to a separator paragraph between the texts of the text frames. I named it "STORY-SEPARATOR". You could change its name if you want in line 10 of the script. Just make sure you'll leave  both quotation marks intact.

As another bonus you can undo the script's action in one go.

But as always: save the result to a different file name!

//StitchTextFramesAfterDatamerge_IN-CREATION-ORDER.jsx

//Uwe Laubender

//DESCRIPTION:Does NOT work, if some text frames are already stitched (threaded) together!!

/**

* @@@BUILDINFO@@@ StitchTextFramesAfterDatamerge_IN-CREATION-ORDER.jsx !Version! Thu Dec 05 2013 23:00:25 GMT+0100

*/

var storySeparatorParaStyleName = "STORY-SEPARATOR";

app.scriptPreferences.userInteractionLevel = UserInteractionLevels.interactWithAll;

try{

app.doScript(_StitchTextFrames, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, [], UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, "Stitch text frames of document together: page by page.");

}catch(e){alert("Sorry, something went wrong:"+"\t"+e.message);exit(0)};

alert("DONE! New paragraph style named \""+storySeparatorParaStyleName+"\" added. Text frames on pages (not on the pasteboard) are threaded page by page in creation order!");

function _StitchTextFrames(){

var d=app.documents[0];

if(!d.paragraphStyles.itemByName(storySeparatorParaStyleName).isValid){

    d.paragraphStyles.add({name:storySeparatorParaStyleName});

    };

d.textFrames.everyItem().insertionPoints[0].contents = "\r\r";

d.textFrames.everyItem().paragraphs[1].appliedParagraphStyle = storySeparatorParaStyleName;

var firstTextFrameID = threadTextFramesInBuildingOrderPageByPage(app.documents[0]);

d.textFrames.itemByID(firstTextFrameID).characters[0].remove();

d.textFrames.itemByID(firstTextFrameID).characters[0].remove();

//FUNCTION

//Returns ID number of first built text frame by lowest number !!

function threadTextFramesInBuildingOrderPageByPage(myDoc){

    var d=myDoc;

    var myPages = d.pages;

    var IDArrayByPages = new Array();

    var n, m, currentTF, nextTF;

    for(n=0;n<myPages.length;n++){

        if(myPages.textFrames.length >0){

            IDArrayByPages = IDArrayByPages.concat(myPages.textFrames.everyItem().id.sort());

            };

        };

    //Stitch together:

    for(m=0;m<IDArrayByPages.length-1;m++){

        currentTF = d.textFrames.itemByID(IDArrayByPages);

        nextTF = d.textFrames.itemByID(IDArrayByPages[m+1]);

        currentTF.nextTextFrame = nextTF;

        };

    return IDArrayByPages[0];

    };

}; //END function _StitchTextFrames(){}

Uwe

NOTE TO MYSELF: Code is damaged because the thread was moved from the old InDesign Forum to the new one by the end of 2019.