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kathleen08
Inspiring
March 3, 2022
Question

Variable Data Set Text Formatting

  • March 3, 2022
  • 4 replies
  • 2764 views

I am using variables and data sets to create a mail merge in Photoshop. For this specific case I have an image on the bottom layer, with several text layers on top. One of the text layers contains ordinal numbers (example: "Superstar, 4th Grade"). Is there a way to make the "th" superscript (smaller and off the base line)? I could fairly easily make the "4" and the "th" in separate fields in my dataset. But the line needs to have the correct spacing throughout - the text before "4th" is also variable.

 

Thank you!

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4 replies

K
kathleen08Author
Inspiring
March 7, 2022

Thank you for the replies!

 

@Stephen Marsh 

I have to do this process with 120 images twice in the next month.

 

If I were doing this in Microsoft Word, it would be easy because I could format each fied/data point separately. In the Adobe ecosystem, I have only every used Photoshop to do this. You mention Illustrator also having variables, and InDesign having Data Merge - maybe I need to research that option if it is more robust/flexible?

 

I have used some scripting in the past, I probably just need a little uninteruppted time to figure it out.

Stephen Marsh
Stephen Marsh
Adobe Expert
March 7, 2022

@kathleen08 

 

Unless a custom script is required, you don't need to know how to program to use a script. Instructions here:

https://prepression.blogspot.com/2017/11/downloading-and-installing-adobe-scripts.html

 

So one of the previously linked scripts might be able to be used to automate the change of text to ordinal/superscript.

 

This could possibly be recorded into an action for batch, Image Processor or Image Processor Pro or Picture Processor scripts to automate the action and saving from PSD to another file format.

 

Although not ideal, if you could use MS Word to generate the text and save it as a transparent or white background image, this could be layered/blended over the Photoshop file. If the Main image file alphabetically sorted in the same order as the text image files from MS Word, then an existing script could be used to combine both images from say two different folders into a single combined image.

K
kathleen08Author
Inspiring
March 7, 2022

The text in front of the ordinal changes, so that is what makes it  more of a challenge. I might take the easy way and just spell out "first" or "fourth". A few examples if you think there is a way to do this.

Stephen Marsh
Stephen Marsh
Adobe Expert
March 7, 2022

@kathleen08 

How many images need to have the text changed?

 

How often does this need to be performed?

 

As my previous post explained, automating the selection of the ordinal text next to the digit is not the issue, a regular expression search and replace can easily handle that:

 

Find: (\d+)(st|nd|rd|th)

Replace: $2

 

 

TH in THE and ST in STEP are not highlighted in orange.

 

The issue as I see it:

 

If using the standard Photoshop variables, you first have to save out the PSD files, with the text as is. Then you will need to either manually or automatically process the PSD files to change the text and save the PSD and other files such as JPG.

 

Alternatively, a full custom script may be able to process each data set and style the text and then output a JPG directly.

 

This brings me back to the links previously provided for superscript text.

 

Photoshop and Illustrator have variables, InDesign has Data Merge – all of which are similar. One program may be easier for this task than the others as InDesign and Illustrator may offer better options for handling text.

Stephen Marsh
Stephen Marsh
Adobe Expert
March 3, 2022

Some links that you can hopefully modify code to meet your requirements:

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photoshop-script-make-text-character-go-superscript/m-p/11404633

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/photoshop-script-to-change-the-font-for-superscript-in-glyph/td-p/12181932

 

https://community.adobe.com/t5/photoshop-ecosystem-discussions/superscript-text-font-change-using-script/m-p/11478018

 

The variables are output as layered PSD files, which would then need to be batch processed to change all occurrences of (\d+)(st|nd|rd|th) $2 into superscript. Otherwise, you would need to make a script that cna work on the merged data as it creates/saves each variable as a file, which may or may not even be possible. I have seen a script to save variable files directly into a different format than PSD, but not a script to edit the generated variables before saving.

    Kukurykus
    Kukurykus
    Brainiac
    March 3, 2022

    Second and fourth links take to the same thread.

    Stephen Marsh
    Stephen Marsh
    Adobe Expert
    March 3, 2022

    OK, thanks I'll delete the fourth link.

    Bojan Živković11378569
    Bojan Živković11378569
    Adobe Expert
    March 3, 2022

    Is that text always the same? Can you show a couple of examples, please? There isn't any hidden feature for data sets and you can not control too many things.

     

    Perhaps some script can help after exporting data sets to find numberth and make it superscript.

     

    Otherwise you can separate text and use paragraph text (I guess) instead of point text before 4th but that may not work for you.

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