How to let chars with different character formats correspond with each other

[jürgenl337577]

Is there a way to let pairs of different character formats that encloses any text between correspond with each other?

The following initial situation: My basic text contains hundreds of strings starting with a superscript lowercase letter (character format "SUB" , blue coloured). Then there is arbitrarily formatted text, then at the end of a word (rarely in the word) there is another lowercase letter with the character format "SUB". Immediately afterwards, a superscript lowercase letter with the character format "Source", red coloured, appears.

The probably very different task is to

-- delete the second lowercase letter (blue coloured) that is equal to the first lowercase letter (blue coloured) and

-- to assign the content of the last lowercase letter with the character format "Source" (red coloured) to the first lowercase letter.

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to script this challenging task.

Many thanks in advance

[Marc Autret · Accepted solution]

Hi Jürgenl,

A quick sketch to get started:

// YOUR SETTINGS
// ---
const EMBED_STYLE = "SUB";
const INFO_STYLE  = "Source";
(function(/*Document*/doc,  r,a,s,w,t,q,cc,x)
{
    if( !doc ) return;
    app.findGrepPreferences = null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.properties =
    {
        findWhat: "\\l{1,2}",
        position: +Position.SUPERSCRIPT,  // or +Position.OT_SUPERSCRIPT (?)
    };
    for( r=0, a=doc.stories.everyItem().findGrep() ; s=a.pop() ; )
    for( q=cc='', w=2 ; t=s.pop() ; )
    {
        if( w != t.length ){ w=2; continue; }
        x = t.characters[0].appliedCharacterStyle.name;
        if( EMBED_STYLE != x ){ INFO_STYLE==x && (w=2); continue; }
        if( 2==w )
        {
            INFO_STYLE == t.characters[1].appliedCharacterStyle.name
            && ( cc=(q=t).contents, w=1 );
        }
        else
        {
            t.contents == cc.charAt(0)
            && ( ++r, q.characters[0].remove(), t.contents=cc.charAt(1) );
            w = 2;
        }
    }
    alert( "Edited tags: " + r );
})( app.properties.activeDocument );

@+

Marc

[jürgenl337577]

Hello Marc, thank you very much for your effort and this ingenious script. It saved me hours i don't have. Since i don't know if the editor has marked everything correctly (subsript small letters in blue) I added two lines for my visual control:

var newCharStyle = app.activeDocument.characterStyles.item("Source0"); 

t.applyCharacterStyle(newCharStyle);

I don't understand your script completely yet, but in the moment i can't steel the time to understand it better. But i will do that as soon as possible. Can i ask you a few more questions a few days later?

many thanks again

greetings jürgen