Unicode Number conversion

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
January 11, 2025
3 replies
1620 views

Hi,

I have a list of sentences with numbers at the start. Generally unicode values of numbers should be from 30-39, however, since the matter is in arabic and I need the numerls in 30 - 39 unicode values, I need to convert it from arabic system to english system.

i.e \x{6f0} to \x{30} for number 0

\x{6f1} to \x{31} for number 1 .... and so on.

As there are more than 10000 numbers it will take forever. How can I do this in InDesign ?

Thanks

Correct answer Peter Kahrel

If you want to target all numbers, simply remove the ^ in the second line. But if you want to convert only paragraph-initial numbers you need the following:

app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '^[\\x{06F0}-\\x{06F9}]+';
d = app.documents[0].findGrep();
for (i = d.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {
  s = d[i].contents;
  for (j = s.length-1; j >= 0; j--) {
    d[i].characters[j].contents = String (s.charCodeAt(j) - 1776);
  }
}

Peter Kahrel

Community Expert

The 10-times-find-and-replace works fine, of course, but it's not too difficult to convert found Arabic-Indic digits to, uhm, Arabic:

app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '^[\\x{06F0}-\\x{06F9}]';
d = app.documents[0].findGrep();
for (i = d.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {
  d[i].contents = String (d[i].contents.charCodeAt() - 1776);
}

You find an Arabic-Indic digit and replace it with its decimal value minus 1776. (The decimal value of the Arabic-Indic 0 is 1776.)

Bedazzled532Author

Inspiring

@Peter Kahrel Thanks for this wonderful code, however, the code works on single digits only. For two or more digits, it is not working. It just takes one digit from 2 or 3 digits number and converts and leaves the rest.

Peter Kahrel

Correct answer

Community Expert

If you want to target all numbers, simply remove the ^ in the second line. But if you want to convert only paragraph-initial numbers you need the following:

app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '^[\\x{06F0}-\\x{06F9}]+';
d = app.documents[0].findGrep();
for (i = d.length-1; i >= 0; i--) {
  s = d[i].contents;
  for (j = s.length-1; j >= 0; j--) {
    d[i].characters[j].contents = String (s.charCodeAt(j) - 1776);
  }
}

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

You might be able to do it with a script - but I don't have ME version of InDesign installed to test - perhaps if you share a sample file or selection of text or something.

I could download the ME version and test it with a custom script if you like.

Should be doable.

You might not need a custom script

There's a find change script already with InDesign that allows you to add GREP search find and replace

It might work.

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

@Eugene Tyson

You don't need ME version.

@Bedazzled532

F&C run 10x times - for every digit - should work.

Or do you need to re-calculate values?

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

@Eugene Tyson

You don't need ME version.

@Bedazzled532

F&C run 10x times - for every digit - should work.

Or do you need to re-calculate values?

By @Robert at ID-Tasker