Changing color of text found with regex

You need the setFormatting() function, described in this Adobe blog post from 2011 http://blogs.adobe.com/cssdk/2011/01/formatting-text-ranges-in-photoshop.html

The main thing to note is that anything not set will revert to the document default - eg. if you change the colour but don't set the typeface, the colour will change but the typeface will change back to whatever is default. I'm not aware of any way to 'get' granular formatting from text, so this works best on a textItem that's initially all one style.

It's easy enough to add parameters to change by lifting code out of Script Listener output.

My example usage here, followed by the function as I'm using it.

var text = docRef.activeLayer.textItem.contents;
// changes font for single or double quotes (') (")
for (var l = 0; l < text.length; l++ ) {
     if (text == '"' || text == "'") {
          setFormatting(l, l+1, "ITC Avant Garde Gothic Std", "Bold Condensed", 120, 80, 100, 0, [255,255,255]);
     }
}

function setFormatting(start, end, fontName, fontStyle, fontSize, vScale, hScale, baseline, colorArray) {
 //Sanity checking: is the active layer a text layer?
     if(app.activeDocument.activeLayer is ArtLayer){
          var activeLayer = app.activeDocument.activeLayer;
          if(activeLayer.kind == LayerKind.TEXT){
           //More checking: does the text layer have content, and are start and end set to reasonable values?
               if((activeLayer.textItem.contents != "")&&(start >= 0)&&(end <= activeLayer.textItem.contents.length)){
               var idsetd = app.charIDToTypeID( "setd" );
               var action = new ActionDescriptor();
               var idnull = app.charIDToTypeID( "null" );
           //The action reference specifies the active text layer.
               var reference = new ActionReference();
               var idTxLr = app.charIDToTypeID( "TxLr" );
               var idOrdn = app.charIDToTypeID( "Ordn" );
               var idTrgt = app.charIDToTypeID( "Trgt" );
               reference.putEnumerated( idTxLr, idOrdn, idTrgt );
               action.putReference( idnull, reference );
               var idT = app.charIDToTypeID( "T   " );
               var textAction = new ActionDescriptor();
               var idTxtt = app.charIDToTypeID( "Txtt" );
           //actionList contains the sequence of formatting actions.
               var actionList = new ActionList();
           //textRange sets the range of characters to format.
               var textRange = new ActionDescriptor();
               var idFrom = app.charIDToTypeID( "From" );
               textRange.putInteger( idFrom, start );
               textRange.putInteger( idT, end );
               var idTxtS = app.charIDToTypeID( "TxtS" );
           //The "formatting" ActionDescriptor holds the formatting. It should be clear that you can
           //add other attributes here--just get the relevant lines (usually 2) from the Script Listener 
           //output and graft them into this section.
               var formatting = new ActionDescriptor();
           //Font name.
               var idFntN = app.charIDToTypeID( "FntN" );
               formatting.putString( idFntN, fontName );
           //Font style.
               var idFntS = app.charIDToTypeID( "FntS" );
               formatting.putString( idFntS, fontStyle );
           //Font size.
               var idSz = app.charIDToTypeID( "Sz  " );
               var idPnt = app.charIDToTypeID( "#Pnt" );
               formatting.putUnitDouble( idSz, idPnt, fontSize );
           //Vertical Scale
               var idVrtS = charIDToTypeID( "VrtS");
               formatting.putDouble( idVrtS, vScale);
           //Horizontal Scale
               var idHrzS = charIDToTypeID( "HrzS" );
               formatting.putDouble (idHrzS, hScale);
           //Vertical Baseline Height
               var idBsln = charIDToTypeID( "Bsln" );
               var idPxl = charIDToTypeID( "#Pxl" );
               formatting.putUnitDouble( idBsln, idPxl, baseline );
           //Fill color (as an RGB color).
               var idClr = app.charIDToTypeID( "Clr " );
               var colorAction = new ActionDescriptor();
               var idRd = app.charIDToTypeID( "Rd  " );
               colorAction.putDouble( idRd, colorArray[0] );
               var idGrn = app.charIDToTypeID( "Grn " );
               colorAction.putDouble( idGrn, colorArray[1]);
               var idBl = app.charIDToTypeID( "Bl  " );
               colorAction.putDouble( idBl, colorArray[2] );
               var idRGBC = app.charIDToTypeID( "RGBC" );
               formatting.putObject( idClr, idRGBC, colorAction );
           //end color.
               //
               textRange.putObject( idTxtS, idTxtS, formatting );
               actionList.putObject( idTxtt, textRange );
               textAction.putList( idTxtt, actionList );
               action.putObject( idT, idTxLr, textAction );
               app.executeAction( idsetd, action, DialogModes.NO );
          }
     }
}

Hi Jarda,

Thank you so much for all your answers! I'm running into an issue when trying to use your script, I put the Humanizer.jsx into the Script list of Photoshop 2018 but I still get the issue "Line: 65 ->  var descMod = Humanizer.objectToDescriptor(desc)[1]; " when trying to run the script  * Set range and change text style

What am I doing wrong?

Also, before I continue any further, do you think it would be cumbersome to modify the script to parse all text layers and find numbers to change the font?

Thanks!

Here is first version of my tool:

GitHub - jardicc/ActionManagerHumanizer: This tool will reveal for you occult mystery of Photoshop ActionDescriptors and…

Works good for me. You probably will need CC 2015.5 and higher

Keep in mind that pure AM will be faster something about 10-30ms per conversion into JS object and back.

I will tell you secret.

You can:

0) read layer actionDescriptor

1) use native function for converting actionDescriptor into JSON

2) use eval() on JSON string and create javascript object

3) modify regular JS object with well known object opertions. You need to do same thing as in my screenshot.

4) convert JS object into JSON string with ".toSource()" method

5) convert JSON string into ActionDescriptor with native function

6) and finally you can put modified descriptor into "executeAction"

I think I will create small library for this workflow.

I have a TODO line to implement low level text manipulation in my extension. But, as my collegues suggested, the AM structure is a  bedrock layer under the swamp guarded by hydras. I don't have enough patience and passion and not smart enough to get to the lowest layers.

I wish Adobe would start the whole PS source code from scratch again and implement it a way which is allowing us to properly script the app.

Thanks xbytor2 for the .jsx code, ill try it!

So do you want to do something like Font Remaping script here: Magic scripts for Photoshop  but with searched text and colors instead font family?

I agree with others. This can be very difficult.

You need to:

1) read whole text layer action descriptor

2) find all your strings and position where they start and where is end of string

3) if text layer has multiple styles, there is list of these styles and index where they start and where they end. So you need to read this descriptor, make copy and change color and position indexes and then put this descriptors into list and this list replace in original layer descritor

4) finaly you can use "set descriptor" action manager code and change the layer.

Like this:

Before:

After:

I recommend abandoning the idea to do this in Photoshop, Indesign is oriented towards sophisticated text editing, so better to do it there.

In Photoshop changing parts of text within a Type Layer necessitates using AM code that can become quite unwieldy in my experience.