Retrieve number of the column of searched text

[Ronald63]

Hi,

I am looking for how, with a GREP search, to retrieve the number of the column of the searched text, when this one is in a multi-column text frame.

Thanks for your help. 

Ronald

[TᴀW · Accepted solution]

It's not possible with GREP to know anything about columns, unfortunately.

It is possible (but not easy) with scripting. (Not easy when span and split column is being used.)

[Ronald63]

Hi,

That's what I thought, but maybe someone had the quick fix 🙂

When you say "It is possible (but not easy) with scripting", can you tell me more? I looked at the properties of textframe, story and insersionpoint and couldn't find anything.

Regards

[rob day · Accepted solution]

You could try this:

var s = app.documents.item(0).selection[0];
var ho = s.horizontalOffset;
var cc = s.parentTextFrames[0].textFramePreferences.textColumnCount;
var cw = s.parentTextFrames[0].textFramePreferences.textColumnFixedWidth;
var g = s.parentTextFrames[0].textFramePreferences.textColumnGutter;
var x = s.parentTextFrames[0].geometricBounds[1]


for (var i = 0; i < cc; i++){
    var cx = i*(cw+g) + x;
    if (ho >= cx && ho < cx + cw) {
        alert("Selected text starts in column " + (i+1))
    } 
};   

[Ronald63]

Cool, merci pour l'aide 😉

[TᴀW]

rob@edidev That's very good. I think I normally use the index property of a textColumn which gives the index of the first character in the column, and then check for that, because relying on horizontal offset is perhaps less reliable for non-rectangular frames.

With span and split columns it gets a lot more complicated though, because (for some reason) each split is considered a separate column.

[Peter Kahrel]

You can do this with a single line:

// With an insertion point 'insPoint'

columnIndex = insPoint.parentStory.insertionPoints.itemByRange (insPoint.parentTextFrames[0].insertionPoints[0].index, insPoint.index).textColumns.length;

[rob day]

Thanks Peter, that’s much better.

[Sunil Yadav]

This is master stroke.

[FRIdNGE]

… How to write a script piece per piece!

https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign/can-regular-expressions-be-used-to-distinguish-abc-columns/m...

[FRIdNGE]

But not really convinced by the answers given!

It seems to me the matter is more about a geographic localization!

That remembers me about a script of mine written in 2011 and this function "InsertCoordinateMultiPageRefs()" that added "tl" for "top-left", "tr" for "top-right", "bl" for "bottom-left", "br" for "bottom-right" after each "index entry page number", basing on the index entry marker insertion point "horizontalOffset/baseline" values!

Funny!

(^/)  The Jedi

[rob day]

Peter’s one liner is working with my selected text example:

var insPoint = app.documents.item(0).selection[0].insertionPoints[0];
var columnIndex = insPoint.parentStory.insertionPoints.itemByRange (insPoint.parentTextFrames[0].insertionPoints[0].index, insPoint.index).textColumns.length;
alert("Selected text starts in column " + columnIndex);

Also works with a split column:

[FRIdNGE]

Aha! In this second case, I would say more: "Damn it! It doesn't work!!! …"

… if I'm only interested by the main parent columns, not the children ones!

(^/)