Script to change bulleted and numbered lists to text without converting the Paragraph Styles

Question

I've seen a posts here about using the "Convert Bullets to Text" contextual option in text as well the method app.activeDocument.stories.everyItem().convertBulletsAndNumberingToText(); however neither is satifactory so ive been writing a script to change the copy in a document that has a bullet or number list style applied to converted text, but i'm having trouble figuring out how to script going through the text, identifying the ones with specific paragraph styles ( there are 6 styles, all set within two layers of groupings: Body Styles [group] > Lists [group] > Bullet lvl 1 [style].

heres what ive tried to so, but i realized that it was converting the whole style not the text with the style.

var bul1 = doc.paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Body Styles" ).paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Lists" ).paragraphStyles.itemByName( "Bullet lvl 1" );

var bul2 = doc.paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Body Styles" ).paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Lists" ).paragraphStyles.itemByName( "Bullet lvl 2" );

var bul3 = doc.paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Body Styles" ).paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Lists" ).paragraphStyles.itemByName( "Bullet lvl 3" );

var num1 = doc.paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Body Styles" ).paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Lists" ).paragraphStyles.itemByName( "Num List lvl 1" );

var num2 = doc.paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Body Styles" ).paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Lists" ).paragraphStyles.itemByName( "Num List lvl 2" );

var num3 = doc.paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Body Styles" ).paragraphStyleGroups.itemByName( "Lists" ).paragraphStyles.itemByName( "Num List lvl 3" );

// app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = bul1;

// bul1.convertBulletsAndNumberingToText();

// app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = bul2;

// bul2.convertBulletsAndNumberingToText();

// app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = bul3;

// bul3.convertBulletsAndNumberingToText();

// app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = num1;

// num1.convertBulletsAndNumberingToText();

// app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = num2;

// num2.convertBulletsAndNumberingToText();

// app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = num3;

// num3.convertBulletsAndNumberingToText();

// alert('Bullet lvl 1, 2, 3 and Number List lvl 1, 2, 3 converted to text.')

Peter Kahrel · Accepted Answer

Rather than using InDesign's Find to look for styles, you may be better off cycling through paragraphs and checking their style names. Something like this:

par = doc.stories.everyItem().paragraphs.everyItem().getElements();
re = /(Bullet|Num) lvl [123]/;
for (i = 0; i < par.length; i++) {
  if (re.test (par[i].appliedParagraphStyle.name)) {
    // do something
  }
}

Peter

SweatersInSummer · Answer

all those bottom lines are shown as commented out, i just forgot to un-comment them before posting but when active they convert the entire style to text, removing the list formatting entirely, and

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded