Automating MathStyles in InDesign

Hi,
I need to automate the equations to math type in InDesign.Can anyone tell me how to automate the process of applying math styles to the equations in the InDesign document.

Read the help file for Data Merge

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Automated Textbox in InDesign CS5 ?

Hi there,
I'm currently working on a portfolio in InDesign CS5. I have already made a small version of this portfolio in Illustrator CS5. As for I am a visual artist and most of my work are architectural visualisations, I have a very simple and minimalistic way of captioning my images - the image takes the whole page and a small caption bar on the side gives some title and customer info. Using Illustartor, I could simply lay a solid rectangle effect as a text backgorund, which would adjust to the text, the way I want (e.g. add 10mm on the left, +5mm on the right, ...). It doesn't matter how long my text will be - the 10mm to the left will always be there. It looks like this:
As for this rectangular backgorund is a real solid shape, it allows further effects (such as shadows) and opacity adjustment. However, I don't succeed in making the same in InDesign - ist impossible? And if not - how can I achieve that?
Thanks in advance,
Helldoor

which would adjust to the text, the way I want (e.g. add 10mm on the left, +5mm on the right, ...). It doesn't matter how long my text will be - the 10mm to the left will always be there.
If you are using OSX this AppleScript might work. Setup your caption box to be right justified with the right indent you need to clear the margin. Type or paste your caption text then run the script.
The first line sets the indent amount, which you can edit as needed.
============================================
--the indent amount in millimeters, adjust as needed
set lindent to 10
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5"
    --set units to millimeters
    set ruler origin of view preferences of active document to spine origin
    set horizontal measurement units of view preferences of active document to millimeters
    set vertical measurement units of view preferences of active document to millimeters
    --make sure there's a selection and get the text and its frame
    try
        set c to {insertion point, character, word, line, paragraph}
        if class of selection is in c then
            set f to item 1 of parent text frames of selection
            set t to parent of selection
        else if class of selection is text frame then
            set f to item 1 of selection
            set t to parent story of selection
        end if
    on error
        display dialog "Please make a selection"
        return
    end try
    --make sure alignment is right with no indents
    set properties of t to {justification:right align, left indent:0, first line indent:0}
    --expand the frame and get the first character's position
    set {a, b, c, d} to geometric bounds of f
    set geometric bounds of f to {a, 0, c, d}
    set hoff to (horizontal offset of insertion point 1 of t) - lindent
    --check for fit
    if overflows of t is true or (count of lines of t) is greater than 1 then
        display dialog "Text overflows"
    else
        set geometric bounds of f to {a, hoff, c, d}
    end if
end tell

Creating an illustrator file from an indesign file

Is there any way of exporting or turning an indesign file into an illustrator file. Not by exporting as a PDF or an EPS and then opening that in illustrator. I mean that in one step (through a third party plug-in in indesign maybe) an indesign file can become an actual illustrator file, headers and file icon looks like an illustrator file etc?
Thanks, Tim

I'll try and clarify as best I can. My hands are a bit tied with confidentiality rules at my company. I guess the best way to put this is we have an automated workflow using indesign server. We want to supply some of our products as actual illustrator files but all our assets are indesign files.

InDesign: Automatic Overprint Fill

Adobe made a minor but tragic mistake in programming InDesign that has continued with every version, and has plagued me several times in my professional career. I discovered after a print job was completed that type was unknowingly converted to "Overprint Fill" without my knowledge, making it transparent and ruining the project. After a few years of this recurring, and being shrouded in mystery, I found out tonight that InDesign automatically converts black type to Overprint Fill when type is converted to outlines in InDesign. This is not a problem if the type remains black. But if the type is filled with any other color, it becomes transparent because it's an "overprint." Overprint Fill is an old-fashioned device. Besides special effects RARELY used, Overprint Fill is practically obsolete. Overprint Fill is the opposite of trapping.
WHY WHY WHY is this an invisible automated feature in InDesign? The only way to preview overprint is to select Overprint Preview in the View menu, which no one ever does, nor should they as a rule. Acrobat FAILS to show the problem, so the files in most cases, go to press with the overprint fill option on, making the type practically imperceptable.
Please fix this Adobe. I just had to replace 6 pages of a magazine after prepress because of this problem. It costs time and money, and is so unnecessary. Poll your users. Does anyone even know what Overprint is? Likely not.

Ask in the ID forum.
Mylenium

Xml workflow/layout question - urgent

Hi,
I'm new to the XML scene and have made progress but have the following question.
I have a .xls file that I open in Oxygen (xml editor) and save out a .xml file.
I then import the .xml file into InDesign CS5.
I have tagged the text placeholders and the image placeholders with the appropriate tags (not shown in this screen grab).
I'd like to automatically flow the text data (A-E, J-O) into a text box (on the right side of image), then flow the images (E-I) into the picture boxes on the left side of the page. There is a large amount of data (InDesign pages) so it is important that I configure this so that all of the content flows automatically thoughout the InDesign file.
Do the images need to be treated as anchored objects in a text box or is it possible to flow them into picture boxes?
I can manually drag the "product_image" files to the picture boxes but I have yet to figure out how to automatically flow these images into the layout, aside from within the same text box as the rest of the text. Instead of using the anchored object approach, it seems it would be more efficient to flow into picture boxes if possible.
Also, any feedback on how to get this data to flow automically thoughout the InDesign file would be really helpful.
Thanks so much.
Josh

Hi,
It is possibly to flow the images into picture boxes without treating them as anchored objects.Appropriately tagging the placeholders for graphics and text and then importing the XML file would allow the data (both text and images) to flow automatically into the respective tagged frames.
Regards
-Pooja

Paragraph Alignment question - is it possible with scripting?

Hello. I am working on a business card template that has a paragraph alignment problem. I have asked in other forums if it was possible, they pointed out that it might be, with scripting.
I need to know if it is, so I can dig further.
Here is the problem: I have a name and title on seperate line that need to be aligned to the right margin (the longest line touches the right margin) but centered above or below themselves. The text box is set to receive a large amount of characters. This is an automated system using InDesign Server so no manual adjustments are being made once the information has been submitted.
Is this possible?

Again, I don't know anything about ID Server, but you can try this. Label the text frame 'card' (select the frame, go to Window > Automation > Script label and enter a 'card' -- without the quotes).
try
   tf = app.activeDocument.textFrames.item ('card');
   p0 = tf.paragraphs[0];
   p1 = tf.paragraphs[1];
   p0.justification = Justification.rightAlign;
   p1.justification = Justification.rightAlign;
   p0left = p0.insertionPoints[0].horizontalOffset;
   p1left = p1.insertionPoints[0].horizontalOffset;
   if (p1left > p0left)
      p1.rightIndent = (p1left-p0left)/2
   else
      p0.rightIndent = (p0left-p1left)/2;
catch(_){}
This one doesn't rely on a selection.
Peter

[VBA] Getting warnings as logfile

Hi folks!
This monday I started using VBA for controlling automation processes in InDesign. I finished a script within Access which creates for each existing data record an own textfile to a specified location. Afterwards it opens for each record an specified InDesign document and merges the data into the document. Finally the document is saved as PDF and closed.
The amount can be over thousands of records. Because of this I'm surpressing dialogs and warnings by using oInDesign.ScriptPreferences.UserInteractionLevel = idUserInteractionLevels.idNeverInteract to avoid breaks. The script works without problems as wished.
But unfortunatelly there can be warnings which are important to know. That's the reason I'm looking for a solution to write warnings into a logfile. Is there anybody who knows how to read out warnings and dialogs within InDesign by using VBA in Access - without breaking the process? A hint would be helpful.
With kind regards,
Steffi

Nobody is answering and I can't find a solution using google... That sounds like there is no possibility to grab the warnings and send them to an error log. What a pity - this would have been such a nice gimmick in scripting for InDesign
If unexpectedly someone finds a hack or something else which makes it possible to grab the warnings please let me know.

InDesign Server Automation

I'm looking into purchasing InDesign Server for the document automation features. One feature, Data Merge, would be a tremendous help for our company.
I'm having some trouble setting it up with a script.
Here's what I have running, just a basic test.
var myDocument = app.open(File("C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\indesign\\test.indd"));
with (app.dataMergeOptions) {
linkImages = true;
removeBlankLines = false;
createNewDocument = true;
documentSize = 100;
} // (end of dataMergeOptions)
myDocument.dataMergeProperties.mergeRecords();
myDocument.exportFile(ExportFormat.PDF_TYPE, File ("c:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\indesign\\merged.pdf"));
myDocument.close ();
In the file I had it linked to a csv that pulled data but it seems the link has been broken (or out of date according to the error).
Can anyone help me with what I am doing wrong or even provide a better method?
I am running the script through PHP via SOAP in IIS running on Windows 2008 R2
InDesign Server CC 2014

Thank you for your post Loic.Aigon.
After I stumbled upon this post javascript - InDesign Script: export to IDML - Stack Overflow I found the option dataMergeProperties.selectDataSource(csv file).
Here's my updated code, sorry for the missing formatting.
var myDocument = app.open(File("C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\indesign\\test.indd"));
var myDataSource = File("C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\indesign\\test.csv");
with (app.dataMergeOptions) {
linkImages = true;
removeBlankLines = false;
createNewDocument = true;
documentSize = 100;
} // (end of dataMergeOptions)
myDocument.dataMergeProperties.selectDataSource(myDataSource);
myDocument.dataMergeProperties.mergeRecords();
app.activeDocument.exportFile(ExportFormat.PDF_TYPE, File ("/c/inetpub/wwwroot/indesign/merged2.pdf"));
//myDocument.save(new File("C:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\indesign\\mergedOutput.idml"));
myDocument.close ();
if I run myDocument.exportFile(ExportFormat.PDF_TYPE, File ("/c/inetpub/wwwroot/indesign/merged2.pdf")); then it tries to merge but throws a warning [link manager Link out of date: file: and links the original csv file it was created with (not my referenced data source file).
I believe I should merge on the active document and not the original document.
But if I run app.activeDocument.exportFile(ExportFormat.PDF_TYPE, File ("/c/inetpub/wwwroot/indesign/merged2.pdf")); it throws a javascript error, app.activeDocument is undefined.

Automating PDF Generation with InDesign

Is it possible for InDesign to retrieve info from a database, automatically format the data with paragraph style(s) and export hi-res PDF art for each database entry? PDF export to include common art positioned on the master page. If this function is possible with InDesign, how does one accomplish this task?... AppleScript? I don’t speak code, so this could be very intimidating. Recommendations?

I think you might need an interpreter. I speak code, sure, but very slowly and with a very thick accent.
Plain vanilla InDesign won't hit a database; there are plugins for that. Catalog plugins, for example; if you're making something catalog-like, that's worth a search or three. If you can get CSV files from your DB, then Data Merge will work for minor automation. Read up on InDesign's XML capabilities if you need something more robust than that; it is extremely useful, and even someone like myself with barely-there software development skills can automate the production of a dictionary with XML spat out of a database.
In terms of automating the the formatting, XML is another obvious choice, because the working method is to map an XML tag to a style.
Exporting PDFs automatically is something that can be achieved with scripting, either Apple- or Java-. I don't know off the top of my head how to set it up, but there are quite a few talented scripters reading these forums, and perhaps one of them can nudge you in the right direction. Perhaps you'll see the advantage in actually contracting one of them to develop this for you.
All that being said, I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a catalog plugin to do exactly what you want. (The last time I said "InDesign can't really do that" it took about fifteen minutes for the forum regulars to post both a plugin and a custom-developed script that basically completely fulfilled the original poster's criteria.)

Automating indesign

Hi,
I am new to Indesign scripting. I have developed a tool using VB.NET for automating word, for exporting text to a Word document and changing styles in it.
Similarily, I want to export data to an Indesign Document.
I want to know, what are the requirements/downloads (sdks/APIs etc.) required to develop a tool for automating Indesign?
Thank you,
Surya.

I don't know how to generate MFC classes of InDesign.
But I am sure you can control InDesign with a "smart" pointer style.
(I don't know what is called this "smart" way.)
// import Type Library
#import "Resources for Visual Basic.tlb"
int findPreset( InDesign::_ApplicationPtr& app, const char* presetName, PrinterPresetPtr& preset)
int rt=-1;
PrinterPresetsPtr pres = app->PrinterPresets;
for(long m=1;m<=pres->GetCount();m++){
PrinterPresetPtr p = pres->Item[m];
if(p->Name == _bstr_t(presetName) ){
preset = p;
rt=0;
break;
return rt;
// inddPath : path of a InDesign document
// printSet : name of print set
void printOut( const char* inddPath, const char* printSet )
do{
InDesign::_ApplicationPtr app;
app.CreateInstance( L"InDesign.Application.CS2_J" ); //Japanese version
InDesign::DocumentPtr doc;
doc = app->Open( _bstr_t(inddPath), VARIANT_TRUE/*show*/ );
//fint Preset
PrinterPresetPtr preset;
if(findPreset(app,preset)!=0){
break;
_variant_t showDialog( true ); // show print dialog?
_variant_t showGrid( false ); // show grid? only Japanese version???
doc->PrintOut( showDialog, preset.GetInterfacePtr() , showGrid );
}while(0);
Hope this helps.
-Satoru

InDesign and XML Automation

I am new to the InDesign and XML Automation process.
We have a xml file that has 100+ items and our goal is to automate them into a InDesign format (5-6 per page). Does InDesign/XML support this and what is the best approach to do this?

The full script runs on "the active document", and it's possible that is the point where ID gets confused. Can you re-write it as a function with *one* parameter -- the document to work on?
Then you can do your loopy (sorry) looping like this:
someDoc = app.open(files[i]);
Run("other script", someDoc);
someDoc.close(SaveOptions.YES);
"app.open" returns a handle to the ID document once it's opened, and if you save it into a variable you can use this wherever you are using "app.activeDocument" now.

No AUTOMATION in InDesign CS5!?

hi, I'd like to use the data merge tool which has served very well in the past. Now, I can't find the menu window/automation. any idea what's happened?
InDesign CS5 Design Premium / Windows 7 / 32 bit
thanks folks...

man, I must be blind!! Thanks a lot
I misclicked on the helpful button and now can't correct to correct answer (unexpected error - must be a bad hair day) sorry & thanks again...

Batch Automating Design update on 1000 InDesign files- Any ideas?

I have just been brought in to a new company that issues one page (and separately saved) biographies using inDesign. The biographies use a standard style, with a great deal of reoccurant information (company details, logo etc) and then some personal info that makes up the biography.
The company recently underwent a re-brand which now means some 1000 of these biographies are displaying incorrect logos, colour schemes, font, watermark, contact information and company details.
I want to amend this, upgrading them to the new style guidelines. And for my personal sanity would like to automate the process as much as possible. Any ideas on how best to tackle this would be greatly appreciated!
My thoughts are as follows:
Partial Automation: - Perhaps I can export swatches, colour profiles and font settings from the updated templates and retrospectivly apply them to all the old ones. This would get me a good deal of the way there... but would still leave an issue on changing all new company details. If I could apply this in bulk I could flag the files for a small amount of editing next time they're needed.
Partial Automation: - Perhaps with a better understanding of the master pages tools I could create a default collection of swatches and space layout and import data into certain fields manually?
Full Automation: - I would love it if some combination of the above and InDesign scripts were possible to use to achieve this... but I am not optimistic. Perhaps the better idea is to use the exportallstories.js script to scrape all the relivant data from my old files. From there I would need to write a python file to identify the relivant fields (namely: Name, Title, biography). I could then migrate these details to a spreadsheet and save it as a .csv file. From here I might finally be able to re-import it back into my new template style using the <<Automated Data merge>> functions! It's a bit hieth robinson and would require some careful thinking on python expressions to get everything into .csv correctly.... but I think it's crazy enough to work. Any assistance on ideas here... or ideas about how I automate this to batch export to RTF (without 1000 tiedious "ok" dialog box clicks) would be greatly appreciated.
Any help, advice or pointers to relavant literature would be greatly appreciated.
Other Info:
I am on CS5
Windows 8 (i know... i know...)
I can get a python IDE up and running pretty quickly
Am happy to migrate this to my native linux for some parts of this process if there are tools/i can use the command line to get things done quicker!
Thanks
aBoL

Thanks all for the replies, it's given me a great deal to think on.
I have discoved some of this information is helpfully stowed on their website. Am going to contact the IT guy... if i could scrape right off it or better yet get access to their mySQL or whatever perhaps that'd be the fastest way to make my magic .csv and then batch import all.
As for plans b-z:
Eugene Tyson I looked into what you suggested about using books. I've still got a problem with importing all to one file if anyone knows a handy script that'd be much appreciated. I still obviously need to read up on master pages, when i've been dragging the style it seems to sandwich both the new style and old style together... so perhaps the data in isn't clean enough anyway (cleaning +1000 files would probably take longer than ctrl+c ctrl+v on all of em)
Peter, you're exactly right. Dirty in dirty out on data right? I've found that given that these files were all made with the same workflow, there is a great deal of consistancy. If its 100% i cannot yet tell, but if i export using the story export .js it seems to me i could either scalp off the bottom most five files (which seem to inevitably contain the valued data) or ponder clever if statements that will detect if it's got something that might be a name or just our latin placeholder text. But yes... i figure whatever a good deal of checking will be invovled.
Ariel, Your help would be greatly appreciated and I will pm you and anyone else who would be willing to get stuck into this challenge!! The main one for me right now would be the automated importing of files in bulk into a single story... perhaps the automated use of the other story export script... or if you were feeling extremely talented, doing all the work in indesign itself, opening files in sequence in a folder, stripping out the contents according to rules (that we could base on the regularity of it's content) or placement (they're generally in the same area) and saving that out to a txt file or even better a .csv!!
anyway I'm teetering between this being a fun challenge and a utter nightmare, but the looming idea of manual data entry is enough to propel me on. Any help / discussion or further thoughts would still be vastly appreciated!
thanks all and have a great weekend.

InDesign 2.0 doesn't launch, but Automator does--???

I know you must be thinking... InDesign CS2, but actually I am still using InDesign 2. Some files are just not built in anything too new that we receive.
The issue is, when I have lately tried to launch ID2, Automator window comes up instead. I have no idea how to get out of the Automator mode to simply open ID2. I have ID2, IDCS and IDCS2 on one machine. Platform is Mac 10.4.11 (Tiger). The other versions seem to launch normally...
Has anybody got a suggestion?
Thanks.

Harbs. wrote:
Have you used 2.0 on this machine before? I have not tried to launch 2.0 in years, and I would not be surprised if it does not work on 10.4. I was created when OS 9 was still around...
Harbs
Harbs, you have hit the nail on the head. I sheepishly admit my mistaken memory of having run InD 2 on current machine, but we have had musical Macs (remember musical chairs?) and the last swap I don't think I migrated my apps with that knowledge in mind. It definitely is not compatible with OS Tiger. It would not let me re-associate program at all and I see Adobe compatibility is only for up to Jaguar...
Sorry for the time-waster, I should have double checked all the obvious first steps before starting this thread...

Automation Hyperlinks inDesign

Hi, I have a question, I have multiple page document that was created from CSV using data merge in inDesign that have specific text that I would like to make into hyperlinks so it can be exported to PDF and the links would work. But the thing is I tried one method described in here using AutoHyperlink script. The problem with that is that I have same text to convert to hyperlinks on all pages (like Product Info, View Image etc) but they need to have links to different webpages. For example on Page 1, "Product Info" text should link to one website, but on Page 3, "Product Info" should link to another website. Is there a way to do automation and source these hyperlinks from CSV or some specific formated text file? If there is any way to do that please let me know. Thanks!

Thanks, Bob, it's good to have a lively disagreement...if you have a moment would you check out Bug #2925372?
The original poster, jen2638, explained up front that she is "not a developer and I do not know scripting." Any solution that requires her to learn scripting is probably a non-starter, and similarly so for XSLT.
I would also say that because pretty much any use of InDesign's native XML import requires the use of XSLT, that tautologically makes it "not super." That is, XSLT is a tool to transform arbitrary XML into other arbitrary XML. Because InDesign's XML import is extremely rigid, the only way to get it to import most kinds of XML is to transform that XML (such as with XSLT).
But I agree. If you can write scripts and XSLT transformations (or other kinds of XML transformations), then using XML with InDesign is extremely powerful. Unfortunately that cuts out 95% of the population, and leaves much of the remaining 5% tearing their hair out.
It is far easier to do any kind of manipulation in Excel and export to CSV and then use Data Merge. (Or to use a purpose-built catalog plugin).
Those will work for this problem, and do so handily (at least, to the extent that I understand the problem).
It's definitely more powerful to do it in InDesign. But it's not friendly; it's not easy; it's not for non-developers; and, in my considered-but-nowhere-near-humble-opinion, it is nothing close to "super."
I guess some of this can be alleviated by good cookbooks, and I think there may be a few of them out there. But.

Automating MathStyles in InDesign

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