Lets say we have some text:
and there are some different formattings - doesn't matter if local or CharStyles.
Now, lets iterate through TextStyleRanges collection of the SELECTED text.
Above example have 4x TSRs:
2nd and 3rd TSRs can be correctly referenced & compared (I'm checking indexes of 1st and last characters) but for simplification:
myText = myText.TextStyleRanges.Item(1).Texts.Item(1)
BUT - returned parent TSR for the 1st text - "NeYxEcTÓW"- even when I've not selected whole TSR - is the same as myText - in this case, parent TSR should be the same as the whole paragraph - "lOmY PfDiIcŁ KoNeYxEcTÓW" - so in the screen above it should be "Text" instead of "TSR" in the TYPE column.
parent of the 4th TSR is returned correctly as "kxlinnacipm" and I have "Text" in the TYPE column.
Can someone verify if you have the same problem - that parent TSR is returned correctly when you select "start" of the TSR - but incorrectly when you select "end" of the TSR.
Parent Paragraph - myText.Paragraphs.Item(1).Texts.Item(1) - doesn't have this problem.
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Replies
Hi @Robert at ID-Tasker , Did you double check the textStyleRange length to make sure it really is 4? With this example:
I get this with JS:
var s = app.activeDocument.selection[0]
var tr = s.textStyleRanges;
$.writeln(tr.length) //returns 7
$.writeln(tr[0].contents) //returns Apples
$.writeln(tr[1].contents) //returns ,
$.writeln(tr[-1].contents) //returns Lemons
$.writeln(tr[0].parent.contents) //returns Otatem ium cuscieni ut fugiam et etur? Apples, Oranges, Limes, Lemons—Pidunditibus mos dus modit fugiatquosam.
returns lemons, it should return lem.
At first I thought the same, but tr[-1] returns [object TextStyleRange] not [object Text], so its contents would be the text to the end of the style range—no?
var s = app.activeDocument.selection[0]
var tr = s.textStyleRanges;
$.writeln(tr.length) //returns 7
$.writeln(tr[0].contents) //returns ples
$.writeln(tr[1].contents) //returns ,
$.writeln(tr[-1]) //returns [object TextStyleRange]
$.writeln(tr[-1].contents) //returns Lemons
$.writeln(tr[0].parent.contents) //returns Otatem ium cuscieni ut fugiam et etur? Apples, Oranges, Limes, Lemons—Pidunditibus mos dus modit fugiatquosam.
$.writeln(tr[0].paragraphs[0]) // returns [object Paragraph]
This might be a work around:
var s = app.activeDocument.selection[0]
var tr = s.textStyleRanges;
var ls = s.characters[-1];
var lr = tr[-1].characters[0]
$.writeln(tr[0].contents) //returns ples
$.writeln(tr[-1].characters.itemByRange(lr,ls).contents) //returns Lemo
Hi,
To summarize, a TextStyleRange is not what we thought it was 😞
Given a single Text object that I'll suppose having a consistent style, the associated text style range is left-bounded (it won't go before the first targeted character) but it runs as far as needed on the right:
And it only ends when something (explicitly) changes in text styling, so it can even cross the paragraphs:
Whether it is a “bug” or a strangely asymmetrical definition, I don't know, but that's the way InDesign text style ranges are formed and reported at the DOM level.
There are cases where (1) we want to get the missing part (to the left) as stressed by @Robert at ID-Tasker, in order to retrieve a maximal, consistent range (no matter the input Text). There are also cases where (2) we do not want the range to expand (to the right) beyond the input Text.
Case (2) is easier to manage, since we know the actual length of the input (myText.length or mySel.texts[0].length). In case (1) some extra steps are required to identify the actual beginning of the range (based on parent word, line, paragraph, column, frame, story—relative to the Text under consideration.)
Best,
Marc
Hi together,
it's a bit off topic perhaps, but while we are at textStyleRanges now consider the following:
Test document attached:
TextStyleRanges-length-GREP-Style-vs-CharacterStyleApplied-2023.indd
Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Expert )
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