Wrong paragraph style gets applied – appliedParagraphStyle

[Jens Trost]

Hi there,

okay, this drives me nuts – I'm writing a script, which creates a "manual" nested TOC based on (also nested) bookmarks.

Now everything works fine – except I can't apply the correct paragraph styles.

If I do a console output I get all the correct paragraphs, no wrong doubles or anything, so I would think I target the right paragraph but somehow everything has applied the style tocMissing at the end.

What am I missing?

I already tried applyParagraphStyle and changd toS to gDoc.pages[0].textFrames.parentStory

    var gDoc = app.documents[0];
    var tocStyle =  gDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("Inhaltsverzeichnis bold");
    var tocStyle2 =  gDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("Inhaltsverzeichnis");
    var tocMissing  =  gDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("MARKER"); // DEBUG
    var sel = gDoc.bookmarks.everyItem().getElements();

        var toc = gDoc.pages[0].textFrames.add();
        var tocS = toc.parentStory;

        for (var i = 0; i < sel.length; i++) { // iterate through bookmarks
            var page = sel[i].destination.destinationPage;
            var entry = sel[i].name;

            var sec = sel[i].bookmarks.everyItem().getElements();

            if (sec.length > 0) {
                tocS.contents += entry + "\r";
                $.writeln("- " + tocS.paragraphs[-1].contents);
                tocS.paragraphs[-1].appliedParagraphStyle = tocStyle;

                for (var k = 0; k < sec.length; k++) {
                    tocS.contents += sec[k].name + "\t" + (sec[k].destination.destinationPage.documentOffset + 1) + "\r";
                    tocS.paragraphs[-1].appliedParagraphStyle = tocStyle2;
                    $.writeln("---- " + tocS.paragraphs[-1].contents);
                }

            } else {
                tocS.contents += entry + "\t" + (page.documentOffset + 1) + "\r";
                $.writeln(tocS.paragraphs[-1].contents);
                tocS.paragraphs[-1].appliedParagraphStyle = tocMissing;
                }
        }

        var gB = toc.geometricBounds;
        var gBnew = [ gB[0], gB[1], gB[0]+125, gB[1]+168 ];
        toc.geometricBounds = gBnew;
​

[brianp311 · Accepted solution]

You're adding \r at the end of your insertion, then trying to apply the style to paragraphs [-1], which is an empty paragraph. Try looking into that. Adding content and applying paragraph styles can be tricky like that. Often I will add in the contents with no styles but with some kind of marker, then use a FindGrep/Text function to remove the marker and add the style. 

[Jens Trost]

Hi @brianp311 
I think you're right.

I have to fiddle a little bit around this, on a quick test I'm not quite getting it.
I tried going a quicker route than adding findGrep
– putting the "\r" after the applying
– instead of -1 using .length-1 

That doesn't change the result?

[Peter Kahrel]

Instead of applying the style to paragraphs[-1], apply it to the last insertion point of the story: story.insertionPoints[-1]

P.

[Jens Trost]

Hi @Peter Kahrel,
thanks for chipping in – although I don't know what difference this effectively should make, in the end your input actually lead to the real issue here, being .parentStory.contents += "mynewcontent".

I spend another hour debugging – and after undoing all steps and looking at the undo commands they read "Replace text" *lightbulb*.

Now it's obvious to me... I always replace the whole thing instead of just adding a line (as += lead me to believe)...

Thank you both.

And for feature readers, here's the working snippet (I sticked to using insertionPoints)

        var gDoc = app.activeDocument;
        var tocStyle =  gDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("Inhaltsverzeichnis bold");
        var tocStyle2 =  gDoc.paragraphStyles.itemByName("Inhaltsverzeichnis");
        var sel = gDoc.bookmarks.everyItem().getElements();
        var toc = gDoc.pages[5].textFrames.add();
            toc.applyObjectStyle(gDoc.objectStyles.itemByName("2sp"), true, false);
            var gB = toc.geometricBounds;
            var gBnew = [ gB[0]+11, gB[1], gB[0]+125, gB[1]+200 ];
            toc.geometricBounds = gBnew;

        var tocS = toc.parentStory;

        for (var i = 0; i < sel.length; i++) { // iterate through bookmarks
            var sec = [];
            var page = sel[i].destination.destinationPage;
            var entry = sel[i].name;
            var sec = sel[i].bookmarks.everyItem().getElements();

            if (sec.length > 0) { // are there nested bookmarks?
                tocS.insertionPoints[-1].contents = entry;
                tocS.insertionPoints[-1].appliedParagraphStyle = tocStyle;
                tocS.insertionPoints[-1].contents = "\r";

                for (var k = 0; k < sec.length; k++) { // iterate through nested bookmarks
                    tocS.insertionPoints[-1].contents = sec[k].name + "\t" + (sec[k].destination.destinationPage.documentOffset + 1);
                    tocS.insertionPoints[-1].appliedParagraphStyle = tocStyle2;
                    tocS.insertionPoints[-1].contents = "\r";
                }
            } else {
                tocS.insertionPoints[-1].contents = entry + "\t" + (page.documentOffset + 1);
                tocS.insertionPoints[-1].appliedParagraphStyle = tocStyle2;
                if (i != sel.length-1) tocS.insertionPoints[-1].contents = "\r";
            }
        }

[brianp311]

. length-1 is essentially the same as [-1]. I was thinking try paragraphs[-2], or try Peter's suggestion.