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O
one of many
Participant
October 19, 2017
Question

Set InDesign spelling and hyphenation dictionaries using Javascript

  • October 19, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 2202 views

First time to post to the the forums.

I am trying to create a script that, among other things, sets the spelling and hyphenation dictionaries of a document to Hunspell. I can't seem to figure out how to address the right piece of the object model to change the dictionaries. I started with the Dictionary portion of Keith Gilbert's InDesign Preferences script and tried to strip out the bits that don't appear to apply to my specific situation, which ends up looking like this:

var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
        myDoc.textDefaults.appliedLanguage = "English: USA";
//        app.languagesWithVendors.itemByName('English: USA').addDictionaryPath(File('~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Linguistics/UserDictionaries/Adobe Custom Dictionary/en_US'));
//        var fullPathOfUDC = "<user disctionary path>";                
//        if (File(fullPathOfUDC).exists) {  
            var languages = app.languagesWithVendors.everyItem().getElements();    
            for (var n=0; n<languages.length; n++) {  
                if (languages.name == app.translateKeyString("$ID/English: USA")) {
//                    var result = languages.addDictionaryPath(fullPathOfUDC);  
                    languages.hyphenationVendor = "Hunspell";
                    languages.spellingVendor = "Hunspell";
                    // languages.doubleQuotes = ;
                    // languages.singleQuotes = ;
                }
            }
//        }

Didn't work.

I then tried a number of variations that tried addressing the objects directly, like this:

 app.languagesWithVendors.itemByName('English: USA').hyphenationVendor = "Hunspell"; 
 app.languagesWithVendors.itemByName('English: USA').spellingVendor = "Hunspell";

That didn't work either. Obviously I don't really understand the object model.

I found another discussion asking about the same situation, but it didn't look like there was a satisfactory answer.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Just trying to solve a problem and learn some stuff in the process.

Thanks in advance for any help you're able to provide!

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Sunil Yadav
Sunil Yadav
Legend
May 10, 2021

This is just working perfectly fine for me too..

    var doc = app.activeDocument;
    var languageWithVendors = app.languagesWithVendors.itemByName("English: USA");
    languageWithVendors.hyphenationVendor = "Hunspell";
    languageWithVendors.spellingVendor  = "Hunspell";
    doc.textDefaults.appliedLanguage = languageWithVendors;

Sunil

Kasyan Servetsky
Kasyan Servetsky
Legend
October 22, 2017

It seems to me you're over complicating things:

Main();
function Main() {
    var doc = app.activeDocument;
    
    var languageWithVendors = app.languagesWithVendors.itemByName("English: USA");
    languageWithVendors.hyphenationVendor = "Hunspell";
    languageWithVendors.spellingVendor  = "Hunspell";
    
    doc.textDefaults.appliedLanguage = languageWithVendors;
}

Before

After

You may need translateKeyString if you have a non English (localized) version of InDesign.

Hope it helps.

— Kas

O
one of manyAuthor
Participant
November 8, 2017

Thanks for the suggestion, Kas.

I'm sure I am overcomplicating things...it's what I do. :-/

I follow what your code is doing. It looks like it should work, but for some reason, for me, it doesn't.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about how to use the Data Browser to be able to see whether spellingVendor and hyphenationVendorhave been set to "Hunspell." What I do know is that it isn't changing the preferences inside an actual document.

I'm at a loss. Any further suggestions?

L
Community Expert
LaubenderCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 8, 2017

https://forums.adobe.com/people/one+of+many  wrote

… What I do know is that it isn't changing the preferences inside an actual document.

How do you know that?

Did a test with Kasyan's code and see no flaw.

I changed my settings for English USA from "Hunspell" to "Proximity" in the preferences (UI) before doing a new document. Then I added a new document and ran the following code with my German InDesign CC 2018 that reads out all property/value pairs of the applied language of the text defaults of the active document:

var appliedLanguage = app.documents[0].textDefaults.appliedLanguage;
for(x in appliedLanguage)
{
    $.writeln(x+"\t"+appliedLanguage);
};

Result was this:

name    Deutsch: 2006 Rechtschreibreform
singleQuotes    ‚‘
doubleQuotes    „“
hyphenationVendor    Duden
spellingVendor    Duden
thesaurusVendor    LILO
untranslatedName    de_DE_2006
dictionaryPaths    
icuLocaleName    de_DE
spellingVendorList    Hunspell,Proximity,Duden: Konservativ,Duden: Presse,Duden: Tolerant,Duden,User Dictionary Only
hyphenationVendorList    Hunspell,Proximity,Duden,User Dictionary Only
id    77
label    
isValid    true
parent    [object Application]
index    18
properties    [object Object]
events    [object Events]
eventListeners    [object EventListeners]
isValid    true

Then I ran Kasyan's script and did my little snippet from above again on the same document.

Results had changed to that:

name    Englisch: USA
singleQuotes    ‘’
doubleQuotes    “”
hyphenationVendor    Hunspell
spellingVendor    Hunspell
thesaurusVendor    LILO
untranslatedName    English: USA
dictionaryPaths    
icuLocaleName    en_US
spellingVendorList    Hunspell,Proximity,User Dictionary Only
hyphenationVendorList    Hunspell,Proximity,User Dictionary Only
id    81
label    
isValid    true
parent    [object Application]
index    22
properties    [object Object]
events    [object Events]
eventListeners    [object EventListeners]
isValid    true

And indeed, my standard paragraph style has changed language to "English: USA" reflected in my results as "Englisch USA" according to my German version of InDesign.

Regards,
Uwe

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