scripting issue centering text and bleed

[davidn5918184]

I almost have this working but I can't seem to figure out 2 things.

1.  Not a deal breaker because it still kind of works, but when I create the document it is not setting the bleed. The black rectangle still extends to bleed but the its not setting in the document setup/bleed.

2. I can't seem to get the text to center, I get "Error Number: 2 Error String: justification is undefined" and I don't understand why. Any help would be greatly appriciated!

// Create a new document with a width of 6 inches, a height of 9 inches, and a bleed of .125 inches
var doc = app.documents.add({
  documentPreferences: {
    pageWidth: 6,
    pageHeight: 9,
    bleedTop: .125,
    bleedLeft: .125,
    bleedBottom: .125,
    bleedRight: .125
  }
});

// Create a black rectangle that extends to the full bleed
var rect = doc.rectangles.add({
  geometricBounds: [-.125, -.125, 9.125, 6.125]
});
rect.fillColor = "Black";

// Create a text frame with the text
var textFrame = doc.textFrames.add();
textFrame.properties =
{
  geometricBounds: [2.96,0.25,4.3,5.75],
  contents: "Text Here\nand More Here"
};

// Format text
var textRange = textFrame.characters.everyItem();
textRange.appliedFont = "Helvetica Neue LT Std\t77 Bold Condensed";
textRange.pointSize = 51;
textRange.leading = 55;
textRange.fillColor = "Paper";
textRange.justification = justification.CENTER;

[Robert Tkaczyk · Accepted solution]

1) can you show a screenshot?

2) why are requesting array / collection of all Characters - I'm not JS guy so not sure what everyItem() returns - but you should rather do:

var textRange = textFrame.texts.item(0);

Or even:

var textRange = TextFrame.parentStory;

Justification isn't property of the Character. 

[davidn5918184]

everyItem here just includes every character in the text frame. There is most likely a better way to do it but for now your observation was correct. Center is not a property of character, I got it working correctly by adding this:

thanks again!

textFrame.parentStory.justification = Justification.CENTER_ALIGN;

[Robert Tkaczyk]

You are welcome 🙂 

But it's still not the right way to interact with text objects in the InDesign. 

If you have more than one character to process - you should get a reference to the .texts(0) - not to the array/collection of all individual characters - unless, of course, your goal is to process each character individually.

Properties of the Character object are a subset of the properties of the Text object - and Text object is much more universal so if you first get a reference to the Text object - you'll avoid similar errors in the future.

[rob day]

Hi @davidn5918184 , not sure if this helps, but the .characters object is a collection not an array— while .characters.everyItem().getElements would return an array:

$.writeln(app.documents[0].stories.everyItem().texts)
//returns [object Texts] a collection (not an array) of text objects

$.writeln(app.documents[0].stories.everyItem().texts.everyItem().getElements())
//returns [object Text],[object Text],[object Text]... an array of text objects

This would set all of the document’s text’s point size and leading to 15/20:

//sets the point size and leading of all the document’s text‘s
app.documents[0].stories.everyItem().texts.everyItem().properties = {pointSize:15, leading:20};

[brianp311]

To answer your first question, you're calling incorrect properties for the bleed settings. Should be: 

documentPreferences: {
    pageWidth: 6,
    pageHeight: 9,
    documentBleedTopOffset: .125,
    documentBleedInsideOrLeftOffset: .125,
    documentBleedBottomOffset: .125,
    documentBleedOutsideOrRightOffset: .125
  }

Or more simply: 

documentBleedTopOffset: .125,
documentBleedUniformSize: true

See: https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign-latest/#DocumentPreference.html