Hi, Marc! I think we are missing something important here. Via UI one can only assign a color to the fill or the stroke, IF the color we search for is already applied to an object EXCEPT for the four basic swatches which are always available ([None], [Black], [Paper] and [Registration]). So if you like to search for a defined swatch named "C=100 M=0 Y=50 K=0" which is not assigned to an object, you simply cannot do so. I checked the constructor of app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor when various colors are assigned from the UI. app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor.constructor; gave me the following results: if fillColor is set in the UI to [None], [Paper], [Black] or [Registration] Result: Color() if fillColor is set to nothing at all: Result: Enumerator() In that case "app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor;" returns the word NOTHING to the ESTK console. if a swatch other than [None], [Paper], [Black] or [Registration] is set: Result: this property is not valid in actual state (rough translation of my German ESTK error message) I checked the properties with "app.findObjectPreferences.toSource();" (no fill color is asigned in the UI), the property fillColor is found: fillColor:({}). A fill color out of the basic four swatches reveals the following property: fillColor:resolve("/color[@id=14]"). In the case of this example [Registration] was asigned via UI. However if a swatch already used in the document like "C=100 M=0 Y=50 K=0" was assigned, the property "fillColor" is not available anymore when checking with toSource(). The property simply has vanished… Uwe ... View more

@Harbs: Now I did further testing. Scenario is now that I stripped all unused swatches from active document and shifted the swatch "[None]" from top to the bottom of the color palette. There are four color swatches remaining (from top to bottom): [Registration], [Paper], [Black] and [None]. Script: var d=app.activeDocument; $.writeln("list of app swatches:"); for(n=0;n<app.swatches.length;n++){     $.writeln(app.swatches +"\t"+n+"\t"+app.swatches .name+"\t"+app.swatches .id);     }; $.writeln("\rlist of document swatches:"); for(n=0;n<d.swatches.length;n++){     $.writeln(d.swatches +"\t"+n+"\t"+d.swatches .name+"\t"+d.swatches .id);     }; Result:list of app swatches: [object Swatch]    0    None    3 [object Color]    1    Registration    4 [object Color]    2    Paper    5 [object Color]    3    Black    6 [object Color]    4    C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0    10 [object Color]    5    C=0 M=100 Y=0 K=0    11 [object Color]    6    C=0 M=0 Y=100 K=0    12 [object Color]    7    C=15 M=100 Y=100 K=0    13 [object Color]    8    C=75 M=5 Y=100 K=0    14 [object Color]    9    C=100 M=90 Y=10 K=0    15 list of document swatches: [object Color]    0    Registration    16 [object Color]    1    Paper    15 [object Color]    2    Black    11 [object Swatch]    3    None    14 So it seems that both index- and id-numbers are changing. Furher I am surprised that I get back [object Color] when I asking for app.swatches or activeDocument.swatches with the exception of my swatch named "None" where it gave me [object Swatch]. What if I try to address fillColor with swatches.itemByName()? With an rectangle object in my active document selected I can change it's fill color to "None" by: app.selection[0].fillColor = app.activeDocument.swatches.itemByName("None"); However if I'm trying to change findObjectPreferences.fillColor the same way: app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor = app.activeDocument.swatches.itemByName("None"); I get an error message (here I have to translate from my German ESTK): "Incorrect value for property "fillColor", Swatch, String or NothingEnum enumerator expected, but recieved Swatch" InDesign CS5 7.0.1 German version. Uwe ... View more

@Harbs: I ran the following test to get a list of the default colors and their names. for(n=0;n<app.colors.length;n++){     $.writeln("IndexNumber: "+n+"       color.name: "+app.colors .name);     }; Result: IndexNumber: 0       color.name: Black IndexNumber: 1       color.name: C=0 M=0 Y=100 K=0 IndexNumber: 2       color.name: C=0 M=100 Y=0 K=0 IndexNumber: 3       color.name: C=100 M=0 Y=0 K=0 IndexNumber: 4       color.name: C=100 M=90 Y=10 K=0 IndexNumber: 5       color.name: C=15 M=100 Y=100 K=0 IndexNumber: 6       color.name: C=75 M=5 Y=100 K=0 IndexNumber: 7       color.name: Cyan IndexNumber: 8       color.name: Magenta IndexNumber: 9       color.name: Paper IndexNumber: 10       color.name: Registration IndexNumber: 11       color.name: Yellow IndexNumber: 12       color.name: IndexNumber: 13       color.name: So doc.colors.item(0) should get "Black", but the script threw an error. I tried doc.color.item(0).name and that gave me fill color "Unknown color". Next I tested the following line: app.findObjectPreferences.fillColor = app.activeDocument.colors[1].name; That finally gave me the desired fill color "None". Very strange to get a read out of C=0 M=0 Y=100 K=0 when asking for colors[1].name. I tested other index values. One should asume that setting fillColor to colors[9].name would yield a fill color [Paper]. But not so. I got "Unknown color". Instead colors[5].name did the trick. If we take a closer look at the list above colors[12] and [13]  seem to have a empty name like that: "" "Reasonable" index numbers to use were: [1] => fillColor [None] [5] => fillColor [Paper] [6] => fillColor [Registration] [11] => fillColor [Black] What's going on here? Tested with InDesign CS5 German version 7.0.1. Tried the same with InDesign CS4 6.0.5 but got only one "hit" at all. Got "Unknown color" also on index 1,5,6. With index 11 I was successful to get fillColor [Black]. Uwe ... View more

There is a fair chance with PhotoShop, if the EPSF is a container for a usual bitmap without vecor data except a clipping path. But in every other case I'd say no. Uwe ... View more

You would have to analyze the PostScript code of the EPSF. And that is a very tough task not posible with ExtendScript from InDesign. It might be possible with PhotoShop EPS files to open them programmatically in PhotoShop, read out resolution and color space and feed the findings back to a text report or a message that pops up in InDesign. But generally speaken for any kind of EPSF, I would say no chance to do it reliably. Uwe ... View more

Hello Marc, your function does not work if the zero point is defined by page or by spine. If the zero point is defined by spread it is working very well. (InDesign CS4 6.0.4 on Mac OS X 10.5.8) Uwe ... View more

@Jongware, recently I tested your script on a document. At first run it behaved a little strange, until I realized that the ruler origin of my document was set to PAGE_ORIGIN. Of course, that will mess up the geometricBounds calculations. So I suggest a few lines of code at the beginning to set the ruler origin to SPREAD_ORIGIN: var d=app.activeDocument; var rulerOriginOLD = d.viewPreferences.rulerOrigin; d.viewPreferences.rulerOrigin = RulerOrigin.SPREAD_ORIGIN; and at the end of the script set them back to what they were: d.viewPreferences.rulerOrigin = rulerOriginOLD; By the way, there is an interesting thread going on about "synoptic typesetting" at the Swiss/German forum "hilfdirselbst". See yourself in its InDesign forum at: http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=438273#438273 Gerald Singelmann wrote a script solution, a proof of concept he states, for synchronizing two text flows on paragraph level. Uwe ... View more

@Stephen, amazingly your script is working on an InDesign CS3 document. It seems that (all?) the IDs for menuActions did not change from CS3 to CS4. Great! A while ago I tried to gather a list of menuActions names and their IDs and wondered that there are thousends of ID numbers not applied to menuActions. Is there a relieable source of menuActions names and their IDs? Using itemByID would wonderfully circumvent a lot of localization problems when writing ExtendScript code with menuActions… Uwe ... View more

@Marco! If you are interested in unicode charts go to http://unicode.org/charts/ and download pdf-charts from there. Uwe ... View more

Hello, Kasyan! When I run BridgeTalk.getTargets() in ESTK on my MacBook Pro OS X 10.5.8  I'm not getting "Acrobat". I get the following list: fireworks ame bridge devicecentral dreamweaver estoolkit exman flash illustrator indesign photoshop stockphotos You might wonder what applications like "ame" and "exman" might be: ame is Adobe Media Encoder, but I'm not sure about "exman". ... View more

@Harbs: At the download site of the script you write "Warning: this script will override any manually applied character styles which conflict with the nested styles!". I tried with a lot of local formatting, but nearly all that was preserved when applying your script. The only occasion it broke was an locally formated underline gap color to a nested styled word. But that formating is rather rare as you already said at InDesign Secret's forum blog. Are there other cases? Uwe ... View more

Please give an code example, just a few lines. Uwe ... View more

Follow up: Now I'm sure that the German version of InDesign behaves different to the American version. I just checked that with a friend in Egypt who is working with an American version of InDesign CS4 6.0.4. Uwe ... View more

Hi Steven, I checked the default document preferences in UI (no document is open). "Facing pages" is off. See screen shot: 6_DefaultDocPreferences_NoOtherDocOpen.png With "app.documentPreferences.facingPages = true;" I can change that to "Facing pages: on". "app.documentPreferences.facingPages = false;" will bring it back to "Facing pages: off". However, when I do "app.document.add()" or do it's equivalent in UI, InDesign takes the last used document preset to construct a new document. If the last used document preset happens to be one with option "Facing pages: on", the new doc will logically obtain all properties not included in the script. Therefore an "app.document.add()" only will yield in a document with all properties defined according to the last used document preset. To change this you can either: use a different document preset like the default preset "app.document.add(true, app.documentPresets[0])" which happens to be a single pages document by default with a master spread definition of one single page or try to give all the needed properties and remove master page number two : var myDoc = app.documents.add(); with(myDoc.documentPreferences){      facingPages = false;      pageWidth = "150mm";      pageHeight = "250mm";      pagesPerDocument = 5;      // ...      }; with(myDoc.viewPreferences){      rulerOrigin = RulerOrigin.PAGE_ORIGIN;      horizontalMeasurementUnits = MeasurementUnits.MILLIMETERS;      verticalMeasurementUnits = MeasurementUnits.MILLIMETERS;      // ...      }; with(myDoc.masterSpreads.item(0).pages.item(0).marginPreferences){      top = "0mm";      left = "0mm";      right = "20mm";      bottom = "0mm";      columnCount = 1;      // ...      }; //I know there might be a "myDoc.masterSpreads.item(1)", but it will never be applied to the doc pages //Therefore I can delete it. Cautiously I will put that in an if statement: if(myDoc.masterSpreads.item(0).pages.length>1){         myDoc.masterSpreads.item(0).pages.item(1).remove();         }; With that approach in the beginning my master spread will always contain two pages. I cannot see the possibility to define my master spread to one page only in advance. Now I tried to implement your suggestion with "app.documentPreferences.facingPages = false;" in front of the code, but it does not influence the construction of the master spread. One word about "app.documentPresets[0]": I found that it's default after a fresh install of InDesign is "Facing pages: off". However you can edit this later to "Facing pages: on", so my bet is to stay with the solution working only with "app.document.add()", add all necessary properties and remove the needless master page when building single sided documents. Uwe ... View more

Thank you, Peter. But: //Code2: // record current state var state = app.documentPreferences.facingPages == true; app.documentPreferences.facingPages = false; myDoc = app.documents.add (); // restore state app.documentPreferences.facingPages = state; // now continue with myDoc myDoc.documentPreferences.pageWidth = "150mm"; myDoc.documentPreferences.pageHeight = "300mm"; yields nothing new: 4_NewDocFromCode2.png If I put in another line for facingPages set to false: //Code 3: // record current state var state = app.documentPreferences.facingPages == true; app.documentPreferences.facingPages = false; myDoc = app.documents.add (); // restore state app.documentPreferences.facingPages = state; // now continue with myDoc myDoc.documentPreferences.facingPages = false; myDoc.documentPreferences.pageWidth = "150mm"; myDoc.documentPreferences.pageHeight = "300mm"; I'll get the following doc: 5_NewDocFromCode3.png which is not the thing I want, because masterSpreads.item(0) still consists of two pages… So it seems that app.documentPreferences.facingPages = false; in front of myDoc = app.documents.add (); does nothing at all. I use a German version of InDesign CS4 6.0.4 on a German Mac OS X 10.5.8. Maybe that's the point. Uwe ... View more

Stephan, sorry to say, but your suggestion is not working for me (InDesign CS4 6.0.4 German Version on Mac OS X 10.5.8). Instead of generating a single page document above code uses part of the previous used document preference file. What I am doing wrong? See also the screen shots: 1_PreviousUsedSettings.png 2_PreviousDocFromTheSettings.png 3_NewDocFromCode.png //NewDoc_SinglePages_SingleMasterSpreadPage.jsx //31.01.2010 //DOES NOT WORK AS EXPECTED: //1.No single page in MasterSpread[0] //2.No single page file //3.Therefore: marginPreferences, columnCount and columnGutter only for left pages as expected //AS EXPECTED: //1.Number of pages generated as stated in previous used documentPreferences setting //Suggestion by Peter Kahrel: //http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=432223#432223 //Triggered by Stephan: //http://forums.adobe.com/message/2556914#2556914 // record current state var state = app.documentPreferences.facingPages == true; app.documentPreferences.facingPages = false; //Function call for an A4 sized document: myDoc = addDocSinglePageWidthHeight(210,297); // restore state app.documentPreferences.facingPages = state; //Function by: Michael L. Haile //http://forums.adobe.com/message/2556113#2556113 //~ function addDocument ( w, h ){ //Edited by Uwe Laubender: //function name //MeasurementUnits=Millimeters function addDocSinglePageWidthHeight ( w, h ){           var myDocument = app.documents.add();           myDocument.viewPreferences.horizontalMeasurementUnits = MeasurementUnits.MILLIMETERS;           myDocument.viewPreferences.verticalMeasurementUnits = MeasurementUnits.MILLIMETERS;           myDocument.viewPreferences.rulerOrigin = RulerOrigin.pageOrigin;           myDocument.documentPreferences.pageWidth = w;           myDocument.documentPreferences.pageHeight = h;           // want only one page 'spread' and set the margins           var myMasterSpread = myDocument.masterSpreads.item(0);           var myMarginPreferences = myMasterSpread.pages.item(0).marginPreferences;           myMarginPreferences.left = 0;           myMarginPreferences.top = 0;           myMarginPreferences.right = 0;           myMarginPreferences.bottom = 0;           myMarginPreferences.columnCount = 1;           myMarginPreferences.columnGutter = 0;           myDocument.pages[0].appliedMaster = myMasterSpread;           return myDocument;      }; The following code does what I want: app.documents.add(true, app.documentPresets[0]); app.activeDocument.documentPreferences.pageWidth="100mm"; app.activeDocument.documentPreferences.pageHeight="200mm"; It generates a single sided document with a single page master spread, 100 x 200 mm. Uwe ... View more

@Peter: I think you mean the following thread: http://www.hilfdirselbst.ch/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=405554#405554 In essence Hans Haesler pointed out, that it might be a good idea to use the standard document preferences: app.documents.add(true, app.documentPresets[0]); Uwe ... View more

Hi, Tony! I found that the private label is indeed stored in a IDML file. For example a label set by app.activeDocument.insertLabel("Uwe","Laubender"); is stored in the designmap.xml part of the IDML file: <Properties>         <Label>             <KeyValuePair Key="Uwe" Value="Laubender"/>         </Label>     </Properties> You can strip those labels from the IDML by deleting the above properties. Uwe ... View more

Hi, fuzzyericlim! Use "fontStyle" for your font weight to define the style as well. Example: sty.appliedFont = "Univers"; sty.fontStyle="55 Roman"; Uwe ... View more

Harbs, just an observation: today I had a problem that I could solve with "recompose()". It's a CS4 script, that takes out an text asset from a library, places it to a page, then simply stores it back to the same library. Nothing complex, just a single text frame, just placing and storing: and "puff", the assets preview is lost or never composed: //JavaScript var d=app.activeDocument; //All assets in the library are single text frames var libraryName = app.libraries.item("MyLibrary.indl"); for(n=0;n<libraryName.assets.length;n++){     var assetName=libraryName.assets.item(n).name;     var assetDescription=libraryName.assets.item(n).description;     var assetLabel=libraryName.assets.item(n).label;     var assetAssetType=libraryName.assets.item(n).assetType;          libraryName.assets.item(n).placeAsset(d);          //Do something exciting with the placed asset...          libraryName.assets .remove();          libraryName.store(d.textFrames.item(0));          libraryName.assets[0].name=assetName;     libraryName.assets[0].description=assetDescription;     libraryName.assets[0].label=assetLabel;     libraryName.assets[0].assetType=assetAssetType;          d.textFrames.item(0).remove();          }; Adding: d.textFrames.item(0).recompose(); to the (now) blank line 17 does the trick. Uwe Edit: tried the same in InDesign CS3: worked without recompose(). ... View more

Hello, Marc! Wow. That was the solution I was hoping for. Great tutorial. Thank you very much! Uwe ... View more

There is a typo in my last line of code. It should read: app.selection[0].rotationAngle=rA; Uwe ... View more

You can use the visibleBounds in case the text frame got a stroke width and you want to know the overall width and height. It's all in the Object Model Viewer of the ESTK. But let me asume the text frame is rotated. Now your formula: height = top-bottom width = left-right is not true any more. In that case you could rotate it back to zero (rotationAngle=0) and do the measurements then… But don't forget to rotate it back to its original position: //Store the actual rotation angle of the selected object to a variable: var rA=app.selection[0].rotationAngle; //Set the objects rotation angle back to zero: app.selection[0].rotationAngle=0; //Now the object is prepared for measuring. //Then store the visual bounds to a variable: var gB=app.selection[0].visibleBounds; //visibleBounds is an Array of four entries (gB[0] to gB[3]) //in the format [y1, x1, y2, x2] of the current coordinate system. //You get its width by substracting x1 from x2: var oW=gB[3]-gB[1]; //And its height by substracting y1 from y2: var oH=gB[2]-gB[0]; //Then restore the objects rotation angle: app.selection[0].rotationAngle=a; Uwe ... View more

Oh, don't thank me for introducing you to the toSource()-method. Your thanks must go to Dirk Becker who introduced me to that method. Uwe ... View more

You might want to add another if-statement: if(app.selection[0].allGraphics[0].fillColor.name == "Black") Because you can colorize a bitmap TIFF to any color of your swatches panel, it would be unfortunate to overprint a color like "Yellow" to a background color like "Cyan". The output you'll get would be a green. Imagine your overprinting bitmap TIFF overlaps different colors the effect might not what you want at all. Uwe ... View more

Of course you need something like this: if (app.selection[0].allGraphics[0].properties.toSource().match(/space:"Schwarzweiß"/g)=="space:\"Schwarzweiß\""){     app.selection[0].allGraphics[0].overprintFill=true; }; The fillColor="Yellow" was for testing only. Uwe ... View more

Hi, Ariel! Try something like this (a bitmap TIFF image is selected): if (app.selection[0].allGraphics[0].properties.toSource().match(/space:"Schwarzweiß"/g)=="space:\"Schwarzweiß\""){     app.selection[0].fillColor="Yellow";     }; Since I'm working with an german version of InDesign the space-property for an bitmap TIFF image is "Schwarzweiß". So figure out what the ESTK exactly tells you when you check with the properties.toSource()-method. It might be: match(/space:"bitmap"/g) which translates to: if (app.selection[0].allGraphics[0].properties.toSource().match(/space:"bitmap"/g)=="space:\"bitmap\""){      app.selection[0].fillColor="Yellow";      }; Uwe ... View more

At least when they are TIFF images. Uwe ... View more