artLayer.pathItems[0].blendingMode = BlendModes.DIFFERENCE; JET ... View more

Whether he realizes it or not, Z is talking about an illustration program designed to allow/encourage drawing things the way an illustrator thinks: in terms of the thrust lines, axes, and construction of his illustration rather than always in terms of horizontal and vertical. The 3-point ellipse and rectangle tools of competing programs like Draw, Designer, and Canvas are at least piecemeal provisions toward that for ordinary orthographic drawing. (Canvas's relative vs absolute Transform setting is related.) They can be leveraged to some degree in perspective and axonometric drawing. (There is much practical use for a rotated bounding box.) Illustrator's Constrain feature is lame, because it suffers from the same debilitating implementation faux pas as SmartGuides: It is buried in general prefs (too inaccessible) and it is an app-level preference instead of a document-specific setting. Mainstream drawing software should be much farther along by now. JET ... View more

Be aware that if the rotated text has ever had other disproportionate transformations applied, the values returned by the matrix manipulations may not be what you want. For example, if your intention is to straighen rotated text, and the text frame has been disproportionately scaled, or if the text characters have a width setting other than 100%, the script may not work to realign the textframe to horiz/vert. JET ... View more

Are you aware that you can do that with an Action in Batch mode, and avoid resorting to scripting? JET ... View more

What scripting language are you using? JET ... View more

> so I count on your taking me seriously next time <br /><br />Maybe you're not taking me seriously. I was asking a simple question: what is the purpose of an if() (or even a portion of an if()) that always returns true?<br /><br />As I understand it, Javascript if() does not return true or false when you put one of the elements of an array in it. It returns the element's value. If the element does not exist, the return is not null or undefined, because the element's value is not null or undefined; the element can't be found to be evaluated.<br /><br />You can see this if in your script you do:<br /><br />alert(paraStyles.getByName("Caption"));<br /><br />What will be returned is not true or false, but [ParagraphStyle Caption].<br /><br />try it again with:<br /><br />alert(paraStyles.getByName("Caption")==true);<br /><br />If the style exists, you get false. If the style does not exist you'll get the element not found error.<br /><br />Evidently this is not peculiar to Illustrator. This understanding seems to be borne out all over the web by the presence of various workarounds designed expressly to check for the existence of an element in a Javascript array, like you can in PHP via the in_array function.<br /><br />One such workaround is described <a href="http://snook.ca/archives/javascript/testing_for_a_v/">here</a>. There are others.<br /><br />So if paragraphStyles.getByName() does not find the referenced element, it is not going to return false; it is going to return the element not found error.<br /><br />It seems unavoidable, then, if you are trying to test for the presence of a Paragraph Style named "Caption", to use a loop to check for the occurrence of the name within the collection. Something like:<br /><br />var docRef=app.activeDocument;<br />var pStyles=docRef.paragraphStyles;<br /><br />var styleNameSought="Caption";<br />var foundIt=false;<br /><br />for(i=0;i<pStyles.length;i++){<br /><br />var currStyleName=pStyles.name;<br /><br />if(currStyleName==styleNameSought){<br /><br />foundIt=true;<br />}<br /><br />}<br /><br />alert(foundIt);<br /><br />JET ... View more

> if(paraStyles) Why would you want the above if statement? That statement will always return as true. All AI documents contain the default [NormalParagraphStyle], which cannot be deleted. JET ... View more

Be aware that the Flatten Transparency workaround also outlines all strokes. Thus, it is not a substitute for the much-needed proper cutting capability which Illustrator still embarassingly lacks. JET ... View more

> it is very slow as it seems to be redrawing all the compound paths? Remove the redraw statement: redraw(); ... View more

Try this Javascript:<br /><br />var docRef=app.activeDocument;<br />for(i=0;i<docRef.compoundPathItems.length;i++){<br />var pathRef=docRef.compoundPathItems;<br />pathRef.selected=true;<br />redraw();<br />}//end for<br /><br />JET ... View more

In CS3 and prior, Illustrator's Artboard is not moveable from the center of the pasteboard. So if your artwork is not centered, setting the Artboard size to the size of the content of your file would not likely do what you want. The scripting model does not provide access to the Artboard size. It is read-only. When scripters need to resize an Artboard, they resort to workarounds involving creation of a new document. JET ... View more

What do you mean? Only $200 will catch Illustrator's page handling up to what other programs were doing 15 years ago. In another 10 years, you might have only spent only $2000 to get things like user-defined drawing scales, live shape primitives, proper cutting tools, actual rounded corners by radii, etc.--catching those features up to what will then be a mere 25 year old status quo. ;-) JET ... View more

Compound paths are not necessarily invisible. Are you talking about clipping paths? JET ... View more

MGuilfoile, Illustrator has a Lasso tool. It's usefulness is rather limited due to the combination of these aspects of AI interface: Insistence on Illustrator's tedious upside-down two-pointers scheme, making the so-called direct selection pointer the most important; but also making selection like trying to eat spagetti with a chopstick. The Lasso is functionally a "direct selection" lasso. There is no "whole object selection" Lasso, nor any behavior option. Illustrator's lack of a surround vs. touch marquee selection option. There is a far better way to make selections lower in the stacking order. FreeHand's treatment is elegant, direct, simple: You press a modifier key and click. The selection cycles through the object stack where you click. Once a path is selected, FH reliably gives selection priority to that path's points and handles. Far better than Illustrator's tedious cursor menu selections. JET ... View more

Chris, I think you will find that the script above does indeed change any spot color Swatch to CMYK process. However, it does not change to CMYK process the colors of artwork on the page to which the spot colors were applied. Well, sort of. Follow these steps carefully and exactly: 1. Create a document with a a spot color Swatch. Name the Swatch MySpotColor. 2. Rectangle tool: Draw a rectangle. Fill it with the spot color Swatch. Leave the rectangle selected. 3. Open the Color Palette. Note that the palette shows the single tint slider, the Spot Color indicator, and the CMYK indicator. The name of the Swatch is shown under the tint slider. 4. Mouse over (but do not click) the Spot Color indicator. Note that the tooltip reads "Spot Color (Click to convert)". If you click the indicator (don't), the object's fill would be changed to a process fill. 5. Run the script. The spot color Swatch becomes CMYK process. Look at the Swatches Palette. Note that the MySpotColor Swatch is not highlighted, even though the rectangle is still selected, and even though Spot Colors are always Global, and Global Colors, by definition, are supposed to update changes to objects to which they have been applied. Look at the Color Palette. Note that the Spot Color indicator is gone, and has been replaced with the Global Swatch indicator. However, also note that only the single tint slider is shown, which would indicate that the color of the rectangle is still a Spot Color. In fact, if you now print the page to PDF as separations, you will see that you still get a Spot Color plate. Also note that the name of the former Spot Color Swatch is gone. There is no name at all. However, mouse over (don't click) the Global Swatch indicator, and note that the tooltip reads "Process Color (Click to Convert)". 6. Drag that color swatch from the Color Palette and drop it in the Swatches Palette. Note that a process (not spot) Swatch is created. Note that the new Swatch is not highlighted, despite the fact the rectangle is still selected, and the color (according to the Color Palette) is supposed to be Global. 7. From the Color Palette's flyout menu, select "Create New Swatch". Note that the New Swatch dialog wants to create a Spot Color swatch, and its name is "MySpotColor 2". 8. Click OK. Note that the new Swatch is created and is highlighted, and that the Color Palette now shows MySpotColor 2 under the tint slider. What's going on here? Well, at first blush, it appears that when changing a color from spot to process via Javascript, Illustrator does not abide by the change regarding what is supposed to be the definition of a Global Swatch. But I think it's more. I strongly suspect this is a bug; and another manifestation of the similar issue I noted in this post regarding apparent confusion on AI Javascript's part about what spot colors are as opposed to global colors. (Do a search for "global" in the AICS3 Javascript Reference, and you'll find no reference to global swatches.) I think either AI's Javascript is screwed up here, or Illustrator is, or they both are. I have always thought that AI's whole "Global Swatch" scheme is screwed up. All Swatches should be what AI calls "global". JET ... View more

Try this:<br /><br />if(app.documents.length>0){<br /><br />var docRef=app.activeDocument;<br /><br />for(i=0;i<docRef.swatches.length;i++){<br /><br />var currSwatch=docRef.swatches;<br /><br />if(currSwatch.color.typename=="SpotColor"){<br /><br />var CMYKvalues=currSwatch.color.spot.color;<br /><br />currSwatch.color=CMYKColor;<br /><br />currSwatch.color=CMYKvalues;<br /><br />}<br /><br />}<br /><br />}<br /><br />Test thoroughly.<br />Use at your own risk.<br />No warranties, express or implied.<br /><br />;-)<br />JET ... View more

You've got syntax and/or reference errors in every line except the first: > if ( app.documents.length > 0 ) { You've opened a conditional statement block: If there is more than one document.... > getByName (Spanish Rojo) = app.activeDocument.swatches[0]; You've typed the name of a method of the swatches object but have not told Javascript which object getByName is a method of. Even if you had included the method's object, you did not put the string parameter in quotes. Javascript doesn't recognize the start of this line as a method and tries to read it as a declaration of a variable named "getByName". But it encounters the space and expects a semicolon, because it sees giberish, "(Spanish Rojo)" before it sees the assignment operator. If that did work, your line would create a variable and assign it a reference to the object which is the first swatch in the document (Swatch[None]). > var colorType = colorType.PROCESS You've declared a variable named "colorType". colorType is a property of the spot object, but you are using it here as the name of a new variable. Then you typed the assignment operator (=). So Javascript is trying to assign your variable, colorType, a value of colorType.PROCESS. But colorType.PROCESS is not in quotes. So Javascript thinks it's a reference to an object or an object property. There is no object or object property named "colorType.PROCESS" in the entire AI Javascript Reference. (Do a search.) You also did not end this statement with a semi-colon. You also didn't close (}) your conditional block. Try this for a start: if ( app.documents.length > 0 ) { var colorToChange = app.activeDocument.swatches.getByName ("Spanish Rojo"); var CMYKvalues=colorToChange.color.spot.color; colorToChange.color=CMYKColor; colorToChange.color=CMYKvalues; } The above assumes a CMYK document, with a spot color Swatch named "Spanish Rojo". To build a script that changed any spot color Swatch in a CMYK document to CMYK process, you'd probably want to run something like the above inside a for() loop that cycles through all the Swatches, checking each to determine whether it is a spot color, and then executing the change if it is--instead of looking for Swatches of a particular name. JET ... View more

> ...and there are things that can be done in scripts that can't be done in the UI. I'd consider that a matter of course. Otherwise, scripting would be little more than a mere macro recorder/playback feature (which Illustrator has in its Actions feature). It's those scripting things that can't be done in the UI that interest me most in a drawing program. Examples: -Call for an ellipse aspect ratio in terms of a single "angle" value (with which anyone who has ever used drafting templates is familiar), instead of by the tedious height and width dimensions. -Randomly distribute instances of one object within the bounds of another. -Programmatically draw faux "fractal" constructs like tree branching or lightning. -Create a set of sequentially-numbered textframe objects (as for callouts in a technical drawing). -Create a tedious geometric construct like a wireframe "sphere" with user-defined numbers of latitude/longitude lines, and at any user-defined tilt angle. (The potential for other similar constructs via scripting is no doubt huge, and has yet to be explored.) And so on. In fact, in a drawing program, I would much prefer the scripting model development to enable things that can't be done in the UI than focus on mere automated playback of UI features. For example, a "collision detection" or "overlap" function could be employed for many useful scripted possibilities, if pathItems had some kind of "region" property that would let you distinguish "inside" from "outside" a path. > It's not quite true to say that you can script anything in the UI in InDesign, but it's darn close... It would be darn close in AI, too, if but for two things: First, AI's bug which has, for at least three versions now, prevented Actions from calling scripts. It can be done for the duration of a worksession, but the Action (macro) "forgets" which script is to be called between launches of the program. Second, the missing script method to launch an Action, and then return to the script. Fix the first and add the second, and one would also be able to say that AI's scripting is darn close to being able to do whatever the UI can, too.... ...with the exception of a few things that I suspect have more to do with the (goofy) way that AI is built; some foundational things in AI are archaic throwbacks for which competing programs found better treatments decades ago. (I say 'I suspect' because I am only a rank beginner of a programmer; corrections from anyone who actually knows better are quite welcome.) Examples: Illustrator still doesn't provide user-defined ruler scales. It seems arcaically married to its underlying 1/72" grid, and everything in the program is tyrannically referenced to that. Certain fundamental things that should be document-specific are instead stashed away in preferences. SmartGuides settings, for example, should clearly be document-specific, not app-level, settings. I've long suspected that kind of thing might be related to the scripting model's inability to change some "document specific" things like Artboard size and ruler units. Certain "features" of Illustrator appear to be actually implemented as clumsy workarounds or "cheats", as opposed to proper and straightforward programming. I wonder if that's what gives rise to some seemingly bizarre aspects of the scripting model, like its apparent confusion between Global Swatches (a poorly-conceived and poorly-executed aspect of AI in itself) and Spot Colors. I also take the continued ommission of certain downright embarassingly absent bread & butter features long commonplace in any decent drawing program as root causes of limitations of the scripting model. For example, it should be suspected by any experienced vector illustrator who is even moderately observant that there must be something seriously awry in AI's underpinnings to explain its still not including a straightforward, no-nonsense path-cutting/shape-trimming functionality that properly handles strokes and fills of the same path(s). So I could be wrong, but I suspect some of the apparent "incompleteness" of AI's scripting model may have more to do with AI's archaic underpinnings. JET ... View more

> In Indesign you can script all of whats possible in the UI Do you know that, in fact, to be true? Is that actually stated somewhere in the documentation that you can point me to? (I haven't had as much opportunity as I would like in scripting InD; have focused on AI.) JET ... View more

Not everything that can be done in the UI can be done in the scripting model. (Nor vice-versa.) Far from it. For just one example: In the UI, you can give a single path multiple strokes and fills. Can't do that in the scripting model. JET ... View more

The RulerUnits property of the document object is read-only. JET ... View more

Have you tried doing it with an Action running in Batch Mode instead of with a script? AI CS3 can open FHMX files. You don't have to save them back to FH9. Any conversion of FH files is going to involve caveats regarding the native FH objects that AI does not understand. JET ... View more

Office productivity programs like Office apps do not natively support vector formats beyond the OS meta formats like WMF and EMF. Office cannot use PDF as spot vector graphics. Nor does it import .ai files and translate their contents into native vector artwork. Office apps support the now rather dated EPS as an embedded or linked graphic object. But EPS assumes a PostScript printer, and is represented on screen and in non-PostScript print as the low-res raster preview it contains. So you can try exporting the vector artwork as EMF. Whether the results are satisfactory will depend upon the specific content involved. If you do not find it to be satisfactory, then you are stuck with a raster format, the most versatile of which nowadays is PNG because it includes lossless compression, is not limited to an indexed color depth, and supports alpha channel masking for so-called "transparency". JET ... View more

> That would be Rotate Tool in step 8? Oops. Yep. JET ... View more

> There must be more ways. Personally, I'd use the Polar Grid tool. Clickdrag, but don't mouseup. Press and hold the down arrow key until you have only one circle. Tap the left arrow key until you have only three radii. Press and hold shift to constrain the circular proportion, then mouseup. But then I would be annoyed that the three pie slices have four points each. So...how do you make three 120 degree pie slices with only three tidy points each? 1. Polygon Tool: Mousedown at some pre-existing snap location. It could be the intersection of two guides, an anchorpoint of a path, etc. Drag, but don't mouse up. Tap the down arrow keys until the polygon has only three sides (an equilateral triangle). 2. WhitePointer: Select two of the triangle's anchorPoints. Click the Convert To Smooth button. Select the other anchorPoint. Click the Convert To Smoot button. (Why two operations? Because in Illustrator's lame Control Panel, the Convert / Cut Selected Points buttons disappear if all the points of a path are selected--more evidence that Illustrator doesn't know the difference between a path being selected as an object and merely having all its points selected.) 3. Select>Path>DirectionHandles. 4. ScaleTool: AltClick the snap-to location that was used in step 1. In the resulting dialog, enter 128.4%. 5. Ctrl-X (Cut to clipboard). Delete. Paste In Front. 6. White Pointer: ShiftClick one of the three pasted paths to deselect it. Delete (the other two are deleted.) 7. Pen Tool: Click one of the endpoints. Click the snap-to location. Click the other endpoint. 8. White Pointer: AltClick the path to select all of it. Scale Tool: AltClick the snap-to location. In the resulting dialog, enter 120 degrees, click Copy. Ctrl-D (Transform Again). JET ... View more

See the example given in the textFont object section of the CS3 Javascript Reference. Copy that script and run it. Then, change: textArtRange = app.activeDocument.textFrames.textRange; to: textArtRange = app.activeDocument.textFrames.characters[0]; and run it again. Then change: textArtRange.characterAttributes.textFont = app.textFonts[0]; to: textArtRange.characterAttributes.textFont = app.textFonts.getByName("Verdana"); and run it again. You cannot always trust the name that is displayed in AI's font menu as the actual name of the font. For example, on my machine, the font listed as "Arial" is actually named "ArialMT". JET ... View more

You don't "use a tool" to draw a path in Javascript. But you can create paths programmatically. See the Javascript Reference and look at PathItems method add() and PathItem method setEntirePath(). JET ... View more

Illustrator's built-in macro recording/playback functionality is called Actions. JET ... View more