Inspiring

Question

Script to find and select all text in a particular frame and set Grid Alignment to NONE

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
July 12, 2023
2 replies
1989 views

Hi everyone,

I'm working on some documents that cotain text frames aligned to baseline grid where they are not supposed to be. They all have a specific fill color applied ("Akane red"). I managed to create a script which find and select all the text in the frame, but I'm stuck on the "Grid Alignment" part. The selected text should not be aligned to baseline grip. Could you please help me? Here's my code:

var doc = app.activeDocument;

var myDoc = app.activeDocument;

app.findObjectPreferences = null;
app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor = "Akane red";
var found = doc.findObject();
for(var i =0;i<found.length;i++)
{
    try{
        found[i].select();
     }catch(e){}
    }
app.findObjectPreferences = null;
   
try {
	app.selection[0].texts[0].select();
} catch (_)
{
   }

Thanks in advance,
Rogerio

This topic has been closed for replies.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

A better option would be to create an Object Style - and in the object style don't have it align to the baseline grid.

Then the script could find the frames and apply the object style.

Then you can change the Object Style everytime you need to make a global change.

m1b

Community Expert

I agree @Eugene Tyson but in this case I got the impression the documents were created elsewhere and weren't so tidy. Also the alignToBaseline would have to be turned off for every paragraph style in the document, and even then it would only work if they were neatly set up with an unoverridden paragraph style.

- Mark

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

ah yes - I don't always remember things are setup as methodically as I would.

Good point.

m1b

Community Expert

Hi @Rogerio5C09, good to see you around. I had a look at your problem and I think it may be related to a bug I reported a while ago. The bug is that a fillColor (or strokeColor) cannot be supplied to the findObjectPreferences without throwing an error.

Anyway, here is a working script to do what you want I think. The actual property to turn off is "alignToBaseline".

- Mark

/**
 * Unsets "Align To Baseline" for all text in text frames filled with the target color.
 * @author m1b
 * @discussion https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/script-to-find-and-select-all-text-in-a-particular-frame-and-set-grid-alignment-to-none/m-p/13932423
 */
function main() {

    var doc = app.activeDocument,
        swatchName = 'Akane red';

    if (!doc.swatches.itemByName(swatchName).isValid) {
        alert('No swatch "' + swatchName + '" in document.');
        return;
    }

    app.findChangeObjectOptions.objectType = ObjectTypes.TEXT_FRAMES_TYPE;
    app.findObjectPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
    // this next line is just to work around this indesign bug: https://indesign.uservoice.com/forums/601180-adobe-indesign-bugs/suggestions/46404439--extendscript-app-findobjectpreferences-fillcolor
    app.changeTextPreferences.fillColor = swatchName;
    app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor = swatchName;

    var found = doc.findObject();

    for (var i = 0; i < found.length; i++)
        found[i].texts[0].alignToBaseline = false;

};

app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Unapply Baseline Grid To Target Frames');

R

Rogerio5C09Author

Inspiring

Hi @m1b , likewise! 🙂 And thanks for the script! It worked just as expected.

I just realized there are some frames in "Akane red" color that Find/Change is not picking up. I found out that the swatch name is changing somehow by adding some random numbers at the end (see screenshot). This is the first time that I'm seeing it. Any thoughts? I guess that's why the script is not working on these particular frames.

Anyway, I found a workaround by finding Inset Spacing instead - the text frames are set to 8,8,10,10 or 5,5,5,5 (Top, Bottom, Left, Right). I'm attaching some files for your reference here. See script below - Sorry, it dosn't look as great as yours and there might be some unnecessary lines hahah. So, I'm try to figure out how to make it work on multiple documents. For now, it works only on a single document and the rest remains the same. Could you please take a look?

for (var d=0; d<app.documents.length; d++)
{
    var doc = app.documents[d];

function main() {

    app.findChangeObjectOptions.objectType = ObjectTypes.TEXT_FRAMES_TYPE;
    app.findObjectPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
    
    app.changeObjectPreferences.insetSpacing = [ 8,10,8,10 ];
    app.findObjectPreferences.insetSpacing = [ 8,10,8,10 ];

    var found = doc.findObject();

    for (var i = 0; i < found.length; i++)
        found[i].texts[0].alignToBaseline = false;

};

app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Unapply Baseline Grid To Target Frames');
}

 for (var d=0; d<app.documents.length; d++)
{
    var doc = app.documents[d];

function main() {

    app.findChangeObjectOptions.objectType = ObjectTypes.TEXT_FRAMES_TYPE;
    app.findObjectPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
    
    app.changeObjectPreferences.insetSpacing = [ 5,5,5,5 ];
    app.findObjectPreferences.insetSpacing = [ 5,5,5,5 ];

    var found = doc.findObject();

    for (var i = 0; i < found.length; i++)
        found[i].texts[0].alignToBaseline = false;
};

app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Unapply Baseline Grid To Target Frames');
}

Also, I noticed that some frames contain tables with text aligned to baseline grid and the script doesn't work on them. Would it be possible to turn off "alignToBaseline" on tables as well?

Thanks in advance,
Rogerio

Community Expert

No, you have a good eye, @Eugene Tyson. I did this a strange way in an attempt to work around an apparent bug I found. It appears to be a problem with Document.findObject(). See this post I wrote, asking if anyone can reproduce the problem. If you have time, check out that post and see if you can reproduce the bug.

Buy yes, if there wasn't a bug (for me, at least) I would do it the way you described, except with no need to set the activeDocument.

- Mark

Bit out of my paygrade ! Yikes !

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