AreaText find hidden characters

Question

Is it possible to find out if a AreaText contains text that is out of bounds?
I want to make sure that NO text is invisible after creating a new AreaText and I dont want to make it bigger then absolutly needed
Trying to find it in the Scripting Reference: Javascript, but without result.
any tips?

Answer 1

Hi Fubar,
I didn't check for  a long time in javascript references, but i working on another project, and may be this can help you:
explanation:
first, i take the length of content text
second, i duplicate text and create outline, this make items of all visible text, so if this length is different than content text, there are thus some hidden characters
1) create a document with an area text with contents
2) run this below
#target illustrator
try {
var doc=app.activeDocument;
var text=doc.textFrames[0];
var tLen=text.contents.length; // total length
var tSpaceB=text.contents.split(" ").length; // number of spaces in tBefore
doc.layers.add();
doc.layers[0].name='TEMP';
text.duplicate (doc.layers.getByName('TEMP'),ElementPlacement.INSIDE ); // duplicate for vectorizing
var tTemp=doc.layers.getByName('TEMP'); // name it
var ctTempVec=tTemp.textFrames[0].createOutline(); //vectoriz
var ctTLen=ctTempVec.pageItems.length-1; // actual length ( = tLen without spaces )
tTemp.remove(); // remove TEMP
if (ctTLen+tSpaceB==tLen){alert ("There are no hidden characters")} else {
alert ("there are "+(tLen-(ctTLen+tSpaceB))+" hidden characters")}     
} catch (e){alert (e)}
ciao, art.chrome