Scripting

[DigitalChickster]

Hi all! I've never done InDesign scripting before, but I've been asked by my employer to learn about it to see if we can use it report building. They sent me a PDF guide (created by Adobe) on learning how to create scripts in InDesign... but it's for CS6. And I'm on the Creative Cloud now. So my question is... is it basically the same process? Or is there a newer guide I can use to help me learn this? Thank you! 

[brianp311]

Much of it is the same, and reading the Guide (and reviewing the sample code) will be helpful. This is a much more user-friendly and interactive API reference guide when you're ready to delve into the DOM: https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign-latest/#about.html

[Creamer Training]

Not to take away from your scripting learning experience, but can you give more information about your report building needs? Is it data driven?

[DigitalChickster]

Creamer Training... yes, I've already created the reports... and they are mostly tables of data. So we were thinking it made sense to have scripts to make it more effecient (and to remove the human error factor!). 

[Creamer Training]

You can link to Excel files using Table and Cell styles. If the Excel file updates, you can update in InDesign file.

Another option is look in to Em Software WordsFlow (works with Excel too) that allows two-way editing.

If it is a database file that needs conditional statements, Em Software makes the InData plugin too.

It's hard to make a recommendation without know what the document looks like and what the incoming data looks like.

[DigitalChickster]

So after reading through the guide, I realized this is WAY beyond what I know how to do. So I asked for clarification, and it seems they don't expect me to create the scripts (phew). I just need to know how to utililize them. So I will post back here if I have more questions (I'm sure I will).