Script to modify paragraph styles based on user-selected input value

Hi @Alistair-MB I don't really understand your workflow—there are some things that don't make sense based on the limited info you've given us—but I'll leave that to experts like Joel.

However, aside from that, I'm a crazy scripter and this caught my interest, despite that there's a high chance it isn't what you need anyway and might not be the best way to go in any case. So here is a script that renames document styles per configured languages, with a simple UI. Read the script instructions and edit the `settings` object as needed. Will this help?

- Mark

/**
 * @file Rename Styles By Language.js
 *
 * Replaces words in document style names from one configured
 * language list of words to another and also sets the applied language.
 *
 * Edit the `settings` object below as needed.
 *
 * @author m1b
 * @version 2025-03-23
 * @discussion https://community.adobe.com/t5/indesign-discussions/script-to-modify-paragraph-styles-based-on-user-selected-input-value/m-p/15226562
 */
function main() {

    var settings = {

        /** the translation languages; add more as you need. */
        languages: {
            'English': { words: ['Appendix', 'Chapter', 'Figure', 'Table'], appliedLanguage: 'English: USA' },
            'German': { words: ['Anhang', 'Kapitel', 'Abbildung', 'Tabelle'], appliedLanguage: 'German: 2006 Reform' },
            'Spanish': { words: ['Apéndice', 'Capítulo', 'Figura', 'Tabla'], appliedLanguage: 'Spanish' },
        },

        /** the language to translate from */
        fromLanguage: 'English',

        /** the language to translate to */
        toLanguage: 'Spanish',

        /** which document elements to translate */
        translateThese: [
            'allParagraphStyles',
            // 'allCharacterStyles',
            // 'allObjectStyles',
            // 'allCellStyles',
            // 'allTableStyles',
        ],

        /** whether to show UI */
        showUI: true,

        /** whether to show user how many translations were made */
        showResults: false,

    };

    if (0 === app.documents.length)
        return alert('Please open a document and try again.');

    var doc = settings.doc = app.activeDocument;


    // collect all the styles to rename
    var styles = [];

    for (var i = 0; i < settings.translateThese.length; i++) {

        var things = doc[settings.translateThese[i]];

        for (var j = 0; j < things.length; j++)
            styles.push(things[j]);

    }

    if (settings.showUI) {

        var result = ui(settings);

        if (2 === result)
            // user cancelled
            return;

    }

    var counter = 0,
        fromWords = settings.languages[settings.fromLanguage].words,
        toWords = settings.languages[settings.toLanguage].words,
        appliedLanguage = getThing(app.languagesWithVendors, 'name', settings.languages[settings.toLanguage].appliedLanguage);

    // do the renaming
    for (var i = 0; i < styles.length; i++) {

        wordLoop:
        for (var j = 0; j < fromWords.length; j++) {

            if (-1 === styles[i].name.search(fromWords[j]))
                continue wordLoop;

            styles[i].name = styles[i].name.replace(fromWords[j], toWords[j]);

            if (
                styles[i].hasOwnProperty('appliedLanguage')
                && undefined != appliedLanguage
            )
                styles[i].appliedLanguage = appliedLanguage;

            counter++;
        }

    }

    if (settings.showResults)
        alert('Translated ' + counter + ' style names\nfrom ' + settings.fromLanguage + ' to ' + settings.toLanguage + '.');

};
app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, 'Rename Styles By Language');


/**
 * Shows UI for Name Styles By Language
 * @param {Object} settings - the settings to adjust via UI.
 * @returns {1|2} - result code
 */
function ui(settings) {

    // load last-used languages from document
    settings.toLanguage = settings.doc.extractLabel('renameFromLanguage') || settings.toLanguage;
    settings.fromLanguage = settings.doc.extractLabel('renameToLanguage') || settings.fromLanguage;

    var w = new Window("dialog", 'Rename Styles By Language', undefined),

        fromMenuGroup = w.add('group {orientation:"row", alignment:["left","top"], alignChildren: ["left","top"], margins:[10,10,10,20], preferredSize: [120,-1] }'),
        fromlanguageMenu = fromMenuGroup.add('dropDownList { title: "From", preferredSize:[150,-1] }'),
        spacer = fromMenuGroup.add('group {orientation:"column", preferredSize: [20,-1] }'),
        tolanguageMenu = fromMenuGroup.add('dropDownList { title: "To", preferredSize:[150,-1] }'),

        buttons = w.add("Group { orientation: 'row', alignment: ['right','bottom'], margins:[0,0,0,6] }"),
        cancelButton = buttons.add("Button { text:'Cancel', properties:{name:'cancel'} }"),
        renameButton = buttons.add("Button { text:'Rename Styles', enabled:false, enabled: true, name: 'ok' }");

    // populate the language menus
    var fromSelected = 0,
        toSelected = 1,
        index = 0;

    for (var langName in settings.languages) {

        if (settings.languages.hasOwnProperty(langName)) {

            fromlanguageMenu.add('item', langName);
            tolanguageMenu.add('item', langName);

            if (settings.fromLanguage === langName)
                fromSelected = index;
            if (settings.toLanguage === langName)
                toSelected = index;

        }

        index++;

    }

    fromlanguageMenu.selection = fromSelected;
    tolanguageMenu.selection = toSelected;

    renameButton.onClick = function () {

        // update settings
        settings.fromLanguage = fromlanguageMenu.selection.text;
        settings.toLanguage = tolanguageMenu.selection.text;

        // store last-used languages in document
        settings.doc.insertLabel('renameToLanguage', settings.toLanguage);
        settings.doc.insertLabel('renameFromLanguage', settings.fromLanguage);

        // close window with success code
        w.close(1);
    };

    w.center();
    return w.show();

};

/**
 * Returns a thing with matching property.
 * If `key` is undefined, evaluate the object itself.
 * @author m1b
 * @version 2024-04-21
 * @param {Array|Collection} things - the things to look through.
 * @param {String} [key] - the property name (default: undefined).
 * @param {*} value - the value to match.
 * @returns {*?} - the thing, if found.
 */
function getThing(things, key, value) {

    for (var i = 0, obj; i < things.length; i++)
        if ((undefined == key ? things[i] : things[i][key]) == value)
            return things[i];

};

One of the day-to-day tasks I perform for translation firms on a regular basis is to prepare InDesign files for translation. Similarly, I frequenly advise businesses and organizations that use external translations services on how they can improve their own translation workflows and reduce translation costs. (In other words, this isn't the first time I've seen your question.) There is a wide variety of tools that these translation providers use, and your question somewhat implies that you're imagining what being a localization engineer might be like. So, when you propose the idea that you could pre-translate parts of the document before assignment with a custom tool, in order to save yourself effort after you get the translated documents back? There is an entire world of enterprise-class tools to do exactly that.  And, pardon me for being a little  bit flippant here, every time your InDesign files cross the desktops of your provider's localization engineers, they're letting out a little world-weary sigh and undoing some of your preparatory work.

See, any reasonably technically proficient firm on the planet is using a tool that consumes IDML exported from InDesign. Very rarely are you going to find that your InDesign files are being opened up in InDesign by your Spanish translators.  More likely, your text gets extracted and is processed (translated by humans, translated by machines, terminology controlled from client glossaries, post-translation editing, etc.) in tools that aren't graphic design tools at all. 

One of my jobs, broadly speaking, is to make sure that the tool that is consuming your work can actually process all of the text, in human-readable units. So when you say

Several paragraph stylesheets (currently: 4) have numbering styles that contain text prefixes: Appendix, Chapter, Table, and Figure. 

I know that your entry in my client's workflow tool or CRM module or whatever would have this fact noted, and it'd be my job to automate the process of getting terms like "Appendix" out of the paragraph style, and into the live text. Then I'd build a tool to put it back in there after transation, because the last thing I'd want to do is to have my client deliver something to you that didn't match what you'd sent. Clearly, your provider isn't doing that step, or it'd say "capítulo" in your styles in your Spanish doc where it says "chapter" in English.

So if you really wanted to make this process faster & less troublesome for everyone, you should be raising these questions directly with your provider. I don't know what tools they use, so I don't know what optimizations to your workflow would be the most likely to make it so you wouldn't have to go looking for custom tool development to preserve your tablas and your capítulos. I don't assume that you doing pre-translation with a custom tool is the best way, but it might well be, depending on business conditions. Better to go back to your provider and talk about how you need to post-process their deliveries, and if my guesses are correct, they'll come back with "Well, we need to pre-process your assignments! We're working at cross-purposes here; let's stop ." 

But if you don't have that kind of relationship with your provider, two ideas spring immediately to mind: 

1) One element of a paragraph style in InDesign is the language. Why don't you have a separate Spanish style template that already has your tablas and your capítulos? That means more style management work on your end, of course, but if you're working with Spanish text, it really ought to be marked as Spanish, right? And there are ways to automate away some of that style-management effort. 

2) In general, I'd say live text doesn't belong in paragraph styles. I mean, where is it? In Bullets and Numbering? Edit your master styles to remove all text that you mean to have translated, and put it in the live text. That's what I'd do, in my hypothetical job as the loc engineer preprocessing your files. 

This could, in some way, be made a bit easier for you if you would use Book feature - but if you work on Windows - all this and way more of your mundane clicking - can be easily automated using my ID-Tasker tool - but it's not free and Windows only. 

With my tool - it could be a one-click-solution for you - first "export" for translation - then "import" - including creation of one combined file with each translation on a separate / dedicated layer - if needed - including copy of the whole Styles Structure, localised images / graphics, etc. 

And by "export" I mean full service - separate folders with correctly named files, etc. - including creation of packages - File -> Package and/or ZIP / RAR archive - and - if the translation company has an FTP server - automatic upload - and then download. 

And all that - just for starters 😉 

And if the translation company isn't "fitting" texts - they only process IDML files without opening them in the InDesign - or you would prefer to do it "in house" - this also can be fully/semi automated - your choice. 

Oops! I just realized that the script would also need to modify TOC styles: [Default], Tables, and Figures.

Cheers,

--Alistair