script for removing empty text frames

[con1499]

hi

i have a document that is well over 400 pages and everytime i delete a page; some empty frames appear in the middle of the page.

instead of removing them one by one, ive tried a couple of scripts ive found via google, however they are working too well and removing everything- including coloured frames that i need.

i have no clue how to write scripts so if someone could give me one that would be amazing.

thankyou in advance!

[Manan Joshi]

Hi @con1499,

What is your definition of an empty frame? And by frame do you mean textframes or retangles, ovals as well?

-Manna

[con1499]

see attached image. the frames in the middle of the page is what needs removing.

the other scripts were also removing the red rectangle frames as well as the grey backgrounds.

[Manan Joshi]

Try the following code

var pis = app.documents[0].pageItems.everyItem().getElements()
for(var i = 0; i <pis.length; i++){
	var pi = pis[i]
	if(pi.hasOwnProperty("contents"))
	{	if(pi.contents == "" && pi.fillColor.name == "None")
			pi.remove()
	}
	else if(pi.pageItems.length == 0 && pi.fillColor.name == "None")
		pi.remove()
}

-Manan

[con1499]

thankyou

ive realised that there is technically something in the frames i am trying to get rid of. See screenshot below.

i am using easycatalog to create the document, and those green squares indicate that data could be paginated into the frame. is there a way to remove them or not?

[Manan Joshi]

I am not sure what it is untill I see the document myself. Can you share a sample document? Another question is why do you want to delete these frames, looking at there state it does not seem they would be visibile in a pdf or print output.

-Manan

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

Those are, most likely, either XML markers or easycatalog's some custom tags / markers. 

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Manan Joshi

Shouldn't be: 

pi.fillColor.name == "[None]"

? 

[code_seeeeeker]

Try this out…

https://creativepro.com/script-cleaning-empty-text-frames/

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@con1499

If you work on a PC, you could use my ID-Tasker tool. It's not free, but you can create a Task, that will get a list of objects with properties you need - kind of "preflight" - and then you can have another Task that will remove those objects. 

Two separate Tasks, just in case, so you can be sure that you won't remove something important - you can visually inspect pre-selected objects for deletion.  

The main advantage of my tool - you don't have to ask anyone to update initial script - you can modify Task(s) at any time, any way you want. 

Free version can still be helpful - you can still get list of objects, do this preflight, but you won't be able to remove them in bulk automatically. 

And you can do a lot more than this - ID-Tasker can replicate pretty much every mundane click that you can make manually - and not only in InDesign.