Convert Table to Text Script

[jhewitt@lifeway]

Does anyone know if there is an Indesign script that will convert all tables in a document to text? I need a fast way to get rid of all tables in a long document before exporting for Digital Editions.

[Shonkyin-CF145T]

Check this one:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/1951975#1951975

Shonky

[Jongware]

The script mentioned in there is not complete -- it works, but on the first table only. This one works, to my own surprise:

var myDoc=app.activeDocument; 
tableList = myDoc.textFrames.everyItem().tables.everyItem();
tableList.convertToText("\t","\r");

-- it's not really much longer than the original, appears to work almost instantly on all tables in the entire document, and it's a single Undo/Redo.

Goes to show I've still a lot to learn.

[Shonkyin-CF145T]

Jongware, after seeing your code i say WOW!

then i tried this:

app.activeDocument.textFrames.everyItem().tables.everyItem().convertToText("\t","\r");

its your code but in a single line....

Shonky

[Jongware]

Well, that's even better!

I wonder why this even works -- what kind of object(s) is/are returned by everyItem()? Using 'constructor.name' returns the name of a single instance; it's certainly not an array. And, as I was very surprised to notice, it works on all items at once, and leaves only a single Undo on the undo stack. Way, way better than "the usual way", looping over all stories and all tables inside each story, but .. why?

[Harbs.]

everyItem() (as well as itemByRange() returns a very weird object. If

you are using it to find a table (for example) it returns a table

object which has arrays as properties instead of the normal

properties. The array is the properties of the objects which are

represented. That's why you can set all the properties (or methods) on

these special objects. It takes some time to get your head around the

objects returned by everyItem(). If you plan to use them as an array,

you need everyItem().getElements(). (Which returns the objects as an

array of regular objects.)

Harbs

http://www.in-tools.com

Innovations in Automation

[Harbs.]

FWIW,

app.activeDocument.stories.everyItem().tables.everyItem().convertToText("\t", "\r");

Is much better for two reasons:

1. Overset text does not have a parent text frame.
2. Anchored text frames (or tables nested in some other way) are not a child of a page (or the document for that matter either).

Neither method will handle teables nested in tables, or in footnotes very well...

Harbs

[Cap_n_Listerine]

Apologies for resurrecting this year old thread but I'm liking the idea of being able to convert a whole document of tables to text but I'm not that knowledgable on the scripting side.

Would someone kindly please show me on how to apply the last post's (Harb's) code into a workable script please?

Thanks.

[Harbs.]

Just copy and save as a jsx file...

Harbs

[Cap_n_Listerine]

So simple.... I feel like a fool now

Many thanks though!

[Spenno]

Hey Harbs

I've just added this script but wondered if there was a way if preserving the paragraph styles when removing the tables? I have a document with many tables but about half a dozen paragraph styles in place, and when I remove the tables the text all reverts to one (the first one used in the table)?

[sangeethak65390815]

hi,

i want to convert text Frame to text Fields for making interactive Pdf so can help me pls..

Thanks,

[InfernoDandA]

hey, thanks for the code Harbs--- this seems very handy
Now is there a way to get it to apply only to single cell tables?

I work with a lot of documents imported from word, it imports multi cell tables, which is nice. but all things that look like text boxes in word it turns into single cell tables in indesign, which is annoying. Would be much cleaner if I could convert them all to text boxes in one go. any ideas?

[Jongware]

The one-liner works on *all* tables, per the original question, and converts them to tabbed text. Converting only one-cell tables to a separate text box is different enough to ask in a separate question.

It probably won't be a one-line solution.