Set composer in InDesign script independent of locale

[MasterDomino]

Hi there,

I am trying to set a story's composer to Adobes single line composer via a script. The issue I have that I am running in a German locale and that I seem to be unable to use the English string to make the script work in all language environments.

myStory.composer = "Adobe Single-line Composer";  // -> throws an error

 Anybody knows how to set it in a way that it recognizes the string in any environment?

Thank you!

[MasterDomino · Accepted solution]

Marc Autret (@indiscripts) kindly provided the answer over at Twitter:

myStory.composer = "$ID/HL Single";

[Laubender · Accepted solution]

Hi MasterDomino,

here all strings for composers that I am aware of for InDesign CS6 and above:

Paragraph composers:

$ID/HL Single
$ID/HL Composer

Adobe World-Ready Composers:

$ID/HL Single Optyca
$ID/HL Composer Optyca

Japanese Composers:

$ID/HL Single J
$ID/HL Composer J

How can you get the strings?

With a German InDesign you could ask with app.findKeyStrings() like that:

// Example: German InDesign
// Provided string is the German version of Adobe World-Ready Paragraph Composer

var myString = "Globaler Adobe-Absatzsetzer";

app.findKeyStrings(myString);
// Result is an array that contains 
// "$ID/HL Composer Optyca"

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[MasterDomino]

Ah, thanks Uwe. That's really good to know, will add this to my snippets collection.

[M.Hasanain]

Hi @Laubender 

I tried to change it to middle east version composer, its Adobe World-Ready Paragraph Composer but i cant identify the composer ID for the Middle East (ME Version), text string written in arabic :

var myString = "أدوبي انديزاين";
var myIDKey = app.findKeyStrings(myString);
$.writeln(myIDKey);

[Laubender]

Hi @M.Hasanain ,

the two strings for the ME Adobe World-Ready Composers are:

$ID/HL Single Optyca
$ID/HL Composer Optyca

So this should work:

myStory.composer = $ID/HL Composer Optyca";

I cannot test with the ME version so I cannot answer your question about app.findKeyStrings().

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[M.Hasanain]

Thank you very much @Laubender 

[Laubender]

Hi @M.Hasanain ,

one thing to note, though:

Recently I tried to change the composer by applying the string to the paragraph style itself through text.appliedParagraphStyle.composer = "Composer String". This surprisingly did not work. There was no error message, the applied paragraph style simply did not change.

What worked was to apply it to the text itself and then change the applied paragraph style accordingly through the GUI. I have to investigate this case…

Test done with my German InDesign 2022 on Windows 10 where I wanted to change the composer to the Japanese Single Line Composer.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )