You can't freeze pagination in a structured document. In an unstructured document, you can try it by pressing Esc p z. The reason it is undocumented is because it resets all of your autonumbers on each page, making it fairly useless for most documents. To restore the regular pagination (and your autonumbers), press Esc p z again. However, I have a plugin that overcomes this limitation. It is not publicly available because it isn't practical for all documents. If you are interested in seeing if it works with your documents, please contact me offlist. Rick Quatro rick at frameexpert dot com 585-659-8267 ... View more

Hi Peter, Thanks. I will have to go through your code and digest it. I have mine working at the book level, except for sorting the entries and writing the index to InDesign. Right now, it writes the index to a text file just so I can test the results, performance, etc. Thank you very much for your help. Rick ... View more

Peter, Yes, I am trying to mimic "Generate Index". My client has a book with a large number of index entries. The index is taking about 4 hours to generate, and then it dies with an error message about an invalid character. I don't have the exact error message right now, but apparently this is a known issue with large indexes. So my goal is to roll my own index generator. Right now I am using an array of objects for the index entries. Each object has two members: entry, which is the index entry itself; and pages, which is an array of page numbers. Once I collect all of the entries in the book, sort them, and sort and remove duplicates from the page numbers, I should be able to write the index. Rick ... View more

Hi Peter, Very nice. I had to change the return value on the sortnum function to a - b to get the correct sort order, but otherwise it worked great. Thank you very much for your generous help. Rick ... View more

Hi Dana, I might be able to help you tomorrow, possibly with a quick web meeting. Contact me offlist. Rick Quatro rick at frameexpert dot com 585-659-8267 ... View more

I must have copied it wrong yesterday, because it is working now. Thanks. ... View more

Back to an index question. I need to collect all of the index entries in an InDesign book and create an index. Can anyone suggest a good data structure that I can use to collect the index entries? I will need to collect the entries and the corresponding page numbers. After they are collected, I will need to do a primary sort on the entries and a secondary sort on the page numbers. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Rick Quatro 585-659-8267 ... View more

Ole, Is it only possible to use doScript when calling an external script? Or, let me phrase it differently: can I set the undoMode for the current script without calling it from another script? Thanks. Rick ... View more

Hi Peter, I am a bit embarrassed, but you are exactly right. When I get the topics ahead of time, it cruises right through the list! Thank you very much. Ole, thanks for the suggestion. I will try this later in the process. Rick ... View more

Hi Dave, Thanks. Neither functions in the thread seems to work with paragraph objects. They returned undefined when I pass a paragraph to them. Rick ... View more

OK, that explains the odd behavior I was seeing. I decided to use the code below. While not as elegant, it works! var doc = app.activeDocument; var spread = doc.masterSpreads[0]; var oPageItems = spread.allPageItems; for (var i = 0; i < oPageItems.length; i+=1) { if (oPageItems.label.match(/Tab(Right|Left)/)) { // Do something here. } } Thanks for the generous help. Rick ... View more

When you extend these methods, do you have to do it at the top of every script? Or, is there a way to do it in an include file? Rick Quatro ... View more

Thanks to Ole and Peter. Yes, I need to maintain the style that is applied to the paragraph. Also, I added this test in case the paragraph is empty already. if (myParagraph.characters.length > 1) { ... } Rick ... View more

Hi Ole, Understood; thanks for the explanation. The InDesign object model has been quite a challenge for me. Fortunately, some things are starting to "click". My background is scripting FrameMaker using FrameScript, a proprietary, third-party language. I think the FrameMaker SDK was way ahead of its time as far as performance and accessing FrameMaker objects, but I digress :-). Rick ... View more

Hi Dave, This does seem cleaner; any idea why the documentation suggests the try/catch approach? Are there any circumstances where you would have to use try/catch instead of testing for null or undefined? Thanks. Rick ... View more

Hi Ole, OK, I see now. I modeled my code after an example in the "Adobe InDesign CS4 Scripting Guide: JavaScript", but I missed this part: ... //If the style does not exist, trying to get its name will generate an error. myName = myCharacterStyle.name; ... Thank you very much for your help. Rick ... View more

Hi Dave, If Art's and Arnis's solutions don't meet your needs, you could do this with FrameScript. A FrameScript script could count the rows in the spreadsheet, create a table with the correct number of rows and columns and then fill it from top to bottom, left to right. Rick Quatro 585-659-8267 ... View more

If your Running H/F 3 variable has the value of <$marker1>, then you add Header/Footer $1 markers to the body pages of the documents. The content of these markers will appear in the footers. Rick ... View more

I found a previous post that is helping me with this. // Paragraph inside of table. var oPgf = app.selection[0].paragraphs[0]; // Make sure the paragraph is inside a table if (oPgf.parent.constructor.name === "Cell") { var oCell = oPgf.parent; var oTbl = oCell.parent; // Get the paragraph containing the table anchor. var oPgf2 = oTbl.storyOffset.paragraphs[0]; // Loop from the table anchor to the top of the story. while (oPgf2) { $.writeln(oPgf2.constructor.name); oPgf2 = oPgf2.parentStory.paragraphs.previousItem(oPgf2); } } This basically works, except this line gives an "Object is invalid" error when it gets to the beginning of the story: oPgf2 = oPgf2.parentStory.paragraphs.previousItem(oPgf2); I can use a try statement, but I am wondering why the loop doesn't exit gracefully without an error. Thanks. Rick ... View more

OK, I think I get it. How do I get the index of the paragraph so I can loop through the paragraph's previous to the table? Thanks. Rick ... View more

I have the basics of cross-references; now I want to insert some external cross-references. Here is the basics of what I have working. // destDoc = destination document. // xrefDoc = adding cross-reference to this doc. // Get a pre-existing destination from the destination document. var dest = destDoc.paragraphDestinations.item('2916'); // Get the cross-reference format. var xrefFmt = xrefDoc.crossReferenceFormats.item('Full Paragraph & Page Number'); // Add the cross-reference source. var source = xrefDoc.crossReferenceSources.add(app.selection[0],xrefFmt); // Add the cross-reference. var xref = xrefDoc.hyperlinks.add(source,dest); This works; however, I am trying to find a way to add a cross-reference without first getting the ParagaphDestination from the destination document. I know the name of the destination document and I know the name of the destination, and I would like to build the external cross-reference without having to open the destination document. Does anyone know if this is possible? Thanks in advance. Rick Quatro 585-659-8267 ... View more

I would like to see a small script illustrating how you write the data to XML and then reimport it. Thanks. Rick ... View more