• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
0

How to create macro in Indesign for pasting symmetrically in a spread?

Participant ,
Oct 12, 2017 Oct 12, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I cannot find a shortcut for copy/pasting in place ACROSS a spread symmetrically.  For examples, like on a master page, you may want have the page numbers equidistant from the edges of the pages.

I'd like to know if someone may know how to do this OR if maybe a macro/scripting could be made.

I figure out a formula for the new X value of the object that one would be copying and pasting:

2* (Page Width) - (original X Value of object) - (Width of object)

(see below).

Any ideas on how to expedite this?

Thanks!

IndesignSpreadPaste.png

TOPICS
Scripting

Views

6.0K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

LEGEND , Oct 13, 2017 Oct 13, 2017

… But if you wanna play!… 

At the beginning, just select the items you want to duplicate on the other side:

Capture d’écran 2017-10-14 à 02.04.41.png

One click later! …

Capture d’écran 2017-10-14 à 02.05.25.png

(^/) 

Of course, it works from right to left and on the entire active spread [items on the 2 pages to be duplicated on the other one].

… For fun: this doesn't work if the spread contains only one page! [of course!]

[ It's done by script! … Personally, not for free! ]

Votes

Translate

Translate
Adobe Employee ,
Oct 13, 2017 Oct 13, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi dsev1,

This could be possible through scripts only, hence moving this thread to InDesign Scripting

Also, please refer to the similar discussion mentioned below:

Indesign Macros (when a script is a sledge hammer)

Regards

Srishti

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Oct 13, 2017 Oct 13, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

… But if you wanna play!… 

At the beginning, just select the items you want to duplicate on the other side:

Capture d’écran 2017-10-14 à 02.04.41.png

One click later! …

Capture d’écran 2017-10-14 à 02.05.25.png

(^/) 

Of course, it works from right to left and on the entire active spread [items on the 2 pages to be duplicated on the other one].

… For fun: this doesn't work if the spread contains only one page! [of course!]

[ It's done by script! … Personally, not for free! ]

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Participant ,
Oct 14, 2017 Oct 14, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Wow, excellent!

Are you will to post the script?

Thanks!!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Oct 13, 2017 Oct 13, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

If you intend to use this for page numbers on the outside, as per your example, then the simplest way is to create a text box as wide as the text frame. Alt+Shift+drag it to the other spread; either use manual guidelines or Smart Guides to position it into the same place. Set the text justification to "Away from spine", and you can use the same paragraph style for both without overrides.

(And of course it can be scripted(*) as well. You might not even need the calculation; page coordinates can be temporarily set to "Page", rather than "Spread", so all positions only need negating -- or so I believe, off the top of my head & rather late at nite.)

(*) InDesign does not have "macros" or otherwise recordable "actions".

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Guide ,
Oct 15, 2017 Oct 15, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi dsev1,

It seems an ideal case for using the Spread coordinate space. (The below snippet should work whatever the ruler units, origin, or spread view orientation.)

function mirrorSelection(  a,t)

// -------------------------------------

// Duplicate the selected objects across the spread symmetrically.

// (This snippet only performs TRANSLATIONS. Rotation and/or shear

// attributes are not mirrored.)

{

    if( !(a=app.properties.selection) || (!a.length) || !('transform' in a[0] ) )

    {

        alert( "Please select at least a page item." );

        return;

    }

   

    const CS_SPREAD = +CoordinateSpaces.spreadCoordinates,

          AP_CENTER = +AnchorPoint.centerAnchor,

          MX = [1,0,0,1,0,0];

   

    while( t=a.pop() )

    {

        MX[4] = -2*t.resolve(AP_CENTER, CS_SPREAD)[0][0];

        t.duplicate().transform(CS_SPREAD, AP_CENTER, MX);

    }

};

app.doScript(

    mirrorSelection, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined,

    UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, "Mirror Selection"

    );

MirrorSel.gif

@+

Marc

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Oct 16, 2017 Oct 16, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Awfully clever!

P.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
People's Champ ,
Oct 16, 2017 Oct 16, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Agreed…

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Guide ,
Oct 16, 2017 Oct 16, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks buddies for your feedback,

Now there is a funny thing: we can perform a full reflection instead—including rotation/shear attributes— and this would require a single SCALING step relative to the center of the spread. No per-item calculation required in that case 🙂 In other words, this could be applied to a plural specifier as well—stuff like ...pageItems.everyItem()—with a significant performance gain.

The code is even simpler:

function fullMirrorSelection(  a,t)

// ------------------------------------- 

// Duplicate the selected objects across the spread symmetrically.

// (This snippet performs a *full* reflection.)

    if( !(a=app.properties.selection) || (!a.length) || !('transform' in a[0] ) ) 

    { 

        alert( "Please select at least a page item." ); 

        return; 

    } 

     

    const CS_SPREAD = +CoordinateSpaces.spreadCoordinates,

          SPD_CENTER = [[0,0],CS_SPREAD],

          MX = [-1,0,0,1,0,0]; // note the -1 for scaleX

     

    while( t=a.pop() ) 

        t.duplicate().transform(CS_SPREAD, SPD_CENTER, MX);

}; 

 

app.doScript(

    fullMirrorSelection, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined,

    UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, "Full Mirror Selection"

    );

Note that the transform() arguments are determined once and do not depend on the particular page item under consideration.

Results look like:

FullMirror.gif

Here again the particular user settings (units, rulers, spread rotation…) do not impact the process.

Best,

Marc

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
People's Champ ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

As we say in French, "N'en jetez plus"

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It does have a problem: the text frames get mirrored as well. It's because of that annotated "-1" in the matrix.

When using this in a design, an image may or may not be reflected – it mainly depends on its use. An ornate border, for example, can safely be reflected, but if you have a portrait of someone or the image contains text, you can't reflect them. Expecting that much real world knowledge and image recognition is a bit too much from JavaScript.

The mirroring text frames can be worked around by explicitly looping over the duplicated items and reverse-mirroring them in-place (around their own center), but then you might as well use the first script Marc's suggested.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Guide ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Proud to get my ACP & MVP colleagues so verbose

Best,

M

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
People's Champ ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

[Jongware]

Your concern is valid but sometimes a mirrored image is ok, sometimes not. Of course, you could introduce a dialog to let the user choose. But even then you an have mixed scenarii. So eventually, the time saved by getting all mirriored items may balance the one you will spend by manually fixing those peculiarities.

food for thought.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
LEGEND ,
Oct 17, 2017 Oct 17, 2017

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

Hi Loic,

Not really sure! …

"To flip or not to flip! That is the (true) question!" [not written by me but by a very old Scripter named Shakespeare!]

The op could decide what item behavior he would like to have, then run the script for "mirroring" all the selected items!

Capture d’écran 2017-10-17 à 16.08.13.png

(^/) 

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines