Finding hidden characters and overriden styles

Question

Hello,
I'm struggling with the following things:
I need to check a document to see if it contains any hidden characters. Do i have to create a loop and check each of the characters? Because with a big document it is impossible to do. Or is there an easier way to do it?
2nd question is that i need to check if any of the character styles have been overriden, i have yet to find a way to do this so any help would be highlyappreciated.

Answer 1

~ Trevor ~ wrote:
I think I've come up with a nice technique here if I say so myself it can be utilized for umpteen properties.  To find them very quickly
I actually think this is one of the best scripts I've written (by far no the most complicated but I think very efficient)
Blah, Blah, Blah
Drat, Drat, Drat!!! Darn! Egg on face!!!
I was sure that using
myOverRiddenStyleFlags = doc.stories.everyItem().textStyleRanges.everyItem().styleOverridden;
while (l--) (myOverRiddenStyleFlags[l]) ? myOverRiddendTextStyleRanges.push(myTextStyleRanges[l]) : 0;
would be a lot quicker than using
while (l--) (myTextStyleRanges[l].styleOverridden) ? myOverRiddendTextStyleRanges.push(myTextStyleRanges[l]) : 0;
well it's not. It is actually slower.
On a nearly 600 page document with several thousand overrides the script took about 74 seconds to run (including making an array of the contents but not displaying it) when not using the flags and about 100 second when using them
So this is not one of the best scripts that I have written at all and my newly discovered technique is pretty rubbish.
Oh well, back to the drawing board.
Anyway here's the boring old script using the good old convectional methods.
// Script by Trevor to make an array quickly of Overridden Text Styles
// http://forums.adobe.com/message/4853747#4853747
#target indesign
app.doScript("main()", ScriptLanguage.javascript, undefined, UndoModes.FAST_ENTIRE_SCRIPT, "List Overridden Text Styles");
function main()
    var startTime = new Date().getTime(); // removable if the time alert below is removed
    var doc = app.activeDocument, myOverRiddendTextStyleRanges = [], l,
        //myOverRiddenStyleFlags = doc.stories.everyItem().textStyleRanges.everyItem().styleOverridden;
     myTextStyleRanges = doc.stories.everyItem().textStyleRanges.everyItem().getElements();
    l = myTextStyleRanges.length;
    while (l--) (myTextStyleRanges[l].styleOverridden) ? myOverRiddendTextStyleRanges.push(myTextStyleRanges[l]) : 0;
    // For the Sake of the Alert but not neaded otherwise
    l = myOverRiddendTextStyleRanges.length;
    var overRiddenContents = [];
    while (l--) overRiddenContents.push(myOverRiddendTextStyleRanges[l].contents);
    alert ("Script  took "+(new Date().getTime()-startTime)/1000+" seconds"); // removable
   // alert (overRiddenContents) // if there are a very lot of overRiddenContents this line can be problematic that's why it's escaped.