Macromedia InDesign - CS6 User Guide

ADOBE® INDESIGN® CS6

ADOBE INDESIGN CS6

SCRIPTING GUIDE: APPLESCRIPT

 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Adobe® InDesign® CS6 Scripting Guide: AppleScript

Document Update Status

(for entire document; see each chapter for chapter-specific update status)

CS6 Updated Throughout document, changed CS5 to CS6 and version 7.0 to 8.0.

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Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

How to Use the Scripts in this Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

About the Structure of the Scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

For More Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2 Scripting Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Script Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Getting the Current Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Script Versioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Targeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Compilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Using the do script Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Sending parameters to do script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Returning values from do script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Controlling Undo with do Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Working with Script Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

Running Scripts at Startup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3 Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Basic Document Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Creating a new document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

Opening a document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Saving a document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Closing a document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Basic Page Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Defining page size and document length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Defining bleed and slug areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Setting page margins and columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Changing the appearance of the pasteboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Guides and grids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Changing measurement units and ruler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Defining and applying document presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Setting up master spreads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Adding XMP metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Creating a document template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Creating watermarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Adjusting Page Sizes and Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Selecting pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Resizing and reframing pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Transforming pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

3

4

Master page overlay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

Making an Adaptive Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Making a flexible layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Adding guides for a guide-based layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Setting constraints for an object-based layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Creating alternative layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Collecting and Dropping Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Printing a Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Printing using page ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Setting print preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Printing with printer presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Exporting a Document as PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Exporting to PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Setting PDF export options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Exporting to grayscale PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Exporting a range of pages to PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Exporting individual pages to PDF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Exporting PDF with interactive features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Exporting as a PDF form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Exporting Pages as EPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Exporting all pages to EPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Exporting a range of pages to EPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Exporting as EPS with file naming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Exporting to EPub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Exporting the current document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Setting EPub export options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

4 Working with Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Understanding the Layer Object Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Scripting Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Creating layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Referring to layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Deleting layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Moving layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Duplicating layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Merging layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Assigning page items to layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Setting layer properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

5 Text and Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Entering and Importing Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Creating a text frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Adding text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Stories and text frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Replacing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Inserting special characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Placing Text and Setting Text-Import Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Exporting Text and Setting Text-Export Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

5

Understanding Text Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Working with text selections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Moving and copying text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Text objects and iteration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Working with Text Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Linking text frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Unlinking text frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Removing a frame from a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Splitting all frames in a story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Creating an anchored frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Fitting text frames to content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Formatting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Setting text defaults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Working with fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Applying a font . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Changing text properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Changing text color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Creating and applying styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Deleting a style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Importing paragraph and character styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Finding and Changing Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

About find/change preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Finding and changing text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Finding and changing text formatting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Using grep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Using glyph search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Working with Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Adding Path Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Using Autocorrect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Adding Footnotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Spanning Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Setting Text Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Working with Linked Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Creating linked stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Changing linked story options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Frequently asked questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

6 Working with Page Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Creating Page Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Page-item geometry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Grouping Page Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Duplicating and Moving Page Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Creating compound paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Using Pathfinder operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Converting page-item shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Arranging page items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Transforming Page Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

6

Using the transform method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

Working with transformation matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Coordinate spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Transformation origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Resolving locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Transforming points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Transforming again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Resize and Reframe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Working with Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Retrieving an article list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Adding new articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Removing an article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Reordering articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Adding new members to an article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Reordering members of an article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Removing members from an article . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

7 User Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Dialog Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Your First InDesign Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Adding a User Interface to “Hello World” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Creating a More Complex User Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Working with ScriptUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Creating a progress bar with ScriptUI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

8 Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Understanding the Event Scripting Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

About event properties and event propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Working with Event Listeners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Sample afterNew Event Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Sample beforePrint Event Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Sample Selection Event Listeners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Sample onIdle Event Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

9 Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Understanding the Menu Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Localization and menu names . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Running a Menu Action from a Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152

Adding Menus and Menu Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Menus and Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Working with scriptMenuActions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

A More Complex Menu-scripting Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

7

10 Working with Preflight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Exploring Preflight Profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Listing preflight profiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Listing preflight rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Listing preflight data objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Importing a Preflight Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Creating a Preflight Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Adding Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Processing a Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Custom Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Available Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

ADBE_BlankPages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

ADBE_BleedSlug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

ADBE_BleedTrimHazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

ADBE_Colorspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

ADBE_CrossReferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

ADBE_FontUsage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

ADBE_ImageColorManagement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

ADBE_ImageResolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

ADBE_PageCount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

ADBE_PageSizeOrientation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

ADBE_ScaledGraphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

ADBE_ScaledType . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

ADBE_SmallText . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

ADBE_SpotColorSetup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

ADBE_StrokeRequirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

ADBE_TextOverrides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

ADBE_TransparencyBlending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

11 Creating Dynamic Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Importing Movies and Sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Creating Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Creating Multistate Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Working with Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Basic animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

TimingSettings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Animating transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

Motion presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Design options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Key frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Adding Page Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

12 XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

The Best Approach to Scripting XML in InDesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Scripting XML Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

8

Setting XML preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Setting XML import preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Importing XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Creating an XML tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Loading XML tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Saving XML tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Creating an XML element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Moving an XML element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Deleting an XML element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Duplicating an XML element . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

Removing items from the XML structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Creating an XML comment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Creating an XML processing instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195

Working with XML attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Working with XML stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Exporting XML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Adding XML Elements to a Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Associating XML elements with page items and text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Marking up existing layouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Applying styles to XML elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Working with XML tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

13 XML Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Why use XML rules? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

XML-rules programming model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

XML Rules Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Setting up a sample document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Getting started with XML rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Changing the XML structure using XML rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

Duplicating XML elements with XML rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

XML rules and XML attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Applying multiple matching rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Finding XML elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Extracting XML elements with XML rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Applying formatting with XML rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

Creating page items with XML rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Creating Tables using XML Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236

Scripting the XML-rules Processor Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238

14 Track Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Tracking Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Navigating tracked changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Accepting and reject tracked changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Information about tracked changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Preferences for Tracking Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

1

Chapter Update Status

CS6 Unchanged

Introduction

This document shows how to do the following:

 Work with the Adobe® InDesign® scripting environment.

 Use advanced scripting features.

 Perform basic document tasks like setting up master spreads, printing, and exporting.

 Work with page items (rectangles, ellipses, graphic lines, polygons, text frames, and groups).

 Work with text and type in an InDesign document, including finding and changing text.

 Create dialog boxes and other user-interface items.

 Customize and add menus and create menu actions.

 Respond to user-interface events.

 Work with XML, from creating XML elements and importing XML to adding XML elements to a layout.

 Apply XML rules, a new scripting feature that makes working with XML in InDesign faster and easier.

We assume that you have already read the Adobe InDesign Scripting Tutorial and know how to create,
install, and run scripts. If you need to know how to connect with your scripting environment or view the
InDesign scripting object model from your script editor, that information can be found in the Adobe
InDesign Scripting Tutorial.

How to Use the Scripts in this Document

For the most part, the scripts shown in this document are not complete scripts. They are only fragments of
scripts, and are intended to show only the specific part of a script relevant to the point being discussed in
the text. You can copy the script lines shown in this document and paste them into your script editor, but
you should not expect them to run without further editing. Note, in addition, that scripts copied out of this
document may contain line breaks and other characters (due to the document layout) that will prevent
them from executing properly.

A zip archive of all of the scripts shown in this document is available at the InDesign scripting home page,
at: http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/scripting/index.html
expanded the archive, move the folders corresponding to the scripting language(s) of your choice into the
Scripts Panel folder inside the Scripts folder in your InDesign folder. At that point, you can run the scripts
from the Scripts panel inside InDesign.

. After you have downloaded and

9

CHAPTER 1: Introduction About the Structure of the Scripts 10

About the Structure of the Scripts

The script examples are all written using a common template that includes the handlers “main,” “mySetup,”
“mySnippet,” and “myTeardown.” We did this to simplify automated testing and publication—there is no
reason for you to construct your scripts this way. Most of the time, the part of the script you will be
interested in will be inside the “mySnippet” handler.

For More Information

For more information on InDesign scripting, you also can visit the InDesign Scripting User to User forum, at

http://www.adobeforums.com

newest scripts. The forum contains hundreds of sample scripts.

. In the forum, script writers can ask questions, post answers, and share their

2

Chapter Update Status

CS6 Updated “Script Versioning” on page 12 and its three subsections have been updated, corrected, and clarified.

Scripting Features

This chapter covers scripting techniques related to InDesign’s scripting environment. Almost every other
object in the InDesign scripting model controls a feature that can change a document or the application
defaults. By contrast, the features in this chapter control how scripts operate.

This document discusses the following:

 The script preferences object and its properties.

 Getting a reference to the executing script.

 Running scripts in prior versions of the scripting object model.

 Using the do script method to run scripts.

 Working with script labels.

 Running scripts at InDesign start-up.

We assume that you have already read Adobe InDesign Scripting Tutorial and know how to write, install, and
run InDesign scripts in the scripting language of your choice.

Script Preferences

The script preferences object provides objects and properties related to the way InDesign runs scripts.
The following table provides more detail on each property of the script preferences object:

Property Description

enable redraw

scripts folder

scripts list

Turns screen redraw on or off while a script is running from the Scripts panel.

The path to the scripts folder.

A list of the available scripts. This property is an array of arrays, in the
following form:

[[fileName, filePath], ...]

Where fileName is the name of the script file and filePath is the full path to
the script. You can use this feature to check for the existence of a script in the
installed set of scripts.

11

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Getting the Current Script 12

Property Description

user interaction
level

This property controls the alerts and dialogs InDesign presents to the user.
When you set this property to
any alerts or dialogs. Set it to
disable dialogs. Set it to
alerts and dialogs. The ability to turn off alert displays is very useful when
you are opening documents via script; often, InDesign displays an alert for
missing fonts or linked graphics files. To avoid this alert, set the
user-interaction level to
then restore user interaction (set the property to
completing script execution.

version

The version of the scripting environment in use. For more information, see

“Script Versioning” on page 12

version of the application.

Getting the Current Script

You can get a reference to the current script using the active script property of the application object.
You can use this property to help you locate files and folders relative to the script, as shown in the
following example (from the ActiveScript tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myScript to active script
display dialog ("The current script is: " & myScript)
tell application "Finder"

set myFile to file myScript

set myParentFolder to container of myFile
end tell
display dialog ("The folder containing the active script is: " & myParentFolder)

end tell

never interact, InDesign does not display

interact with alerts to enable alerts but

interact with all to restore the normal display of

never interact before opening the document,

interact with all) before

. Note this property is not the same as the

When you debug scripts using a script editor, the active script property returns an error. Only scripts
run from the Scripts palette appear in the

Script Versioning

InDesign can run scripts using earlier versions of the InDesign scripting object model. To run an older
script in a newer version of InDesign, you must consider the following:

 Targeting — Scripts must be targeted to the version of InDesign in which they are being run (i.e., the

current version). The mechanics of targeting are language specific as described in “Targeting” on

page 13.

 Compilation — This involves mapping the names in the script to the underlying script IDs, which are

what InDesign understands. The mechanics of compilation are language specific as described in

“Compilation” on page 13

 Interpretation — This involves matching the IDs to the appropriate request handler within InDesign

so that InDesign correctly interprets a script written for an earlier version of the scripting object model.
To do this, either explicitly set the application’s script preferences to the old object model within the

active script property.

.

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Script Versioning 13

script (as shown in “Interpretation” on page 13) or run the script from a folder in the Scripts panel
folder as follows:

Folder For InDesign version of scripts

Version 8.0 Scripts

Version 7.0 Scripts

Version 6.0 Scripts

Version 5.0 Scripts

Version 2.0 Scripts

Targ eting

A script must always target the version of InDesign under which it is running (the current version), either
explicitly or implicitly. Targeting is implicit when the script is launched from the Scripts panel.

Otherwise, explicit targeting for AppleScripts is done using the tell statement:

--Target InDesign CS6
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

Compilation

Typically, AppleScripts are compiled using the targeted application’s dictionary. This behavior may be
overridden by means of the
InDesign dictionary for compilation purposes. For example, to use a CS5 script (version 7.0) within CS6
(version 8.0):

CS6

CS5 and CS5.5

CS4

CS3

CS2

using terms from statement, which substitutes a different version of the

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6" --target CS6

using terms from application "InDesign CS5" --compile using CS5

--InDesign CS5 version script goes here.
end using terms from
end tell

For this to work, you need to generate a CS5 version of the AppleScript dictionary, use the publish

terminology command, which is exposed on the application object. The dictionary is generated into a

folder (named with the version of the DOM) that is in the
preferences folder. For example, to generate the CS5 dictionary into the

/Users/<username>/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/Version 8.0/<locale>/Scripting
Support/7.0-J folder:

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--publish the InDesign CS5 dictionary (version 7.0 DOM)
publish terminology version 7.0
end tell

Interpretation

The InDesign application object contains a script preferences object, which allows a script to get/set
the version of the scripting object model to use for interpreting scripts. The version defaults to the current
version of the application and persists.

Scripting Support folder in your application’s

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Using the do script Method 14

For example, to change the version of the scripting object model to CS5 (7.0):

--Set to 7.0 scripting object model
set version of script preferences to 7.0

Using the do script Method

The do script method gives a script a way to execute another script. The script can be a string of valid
scripting code or a file on disk. The script can be in the same scripting language as the current script or
another scripting language. The available languages vary by platform: on Mac OS

®

AppleScript or JavaScript; on Windows

The

do script method has many possible uses:

 Running a script in another language that provides a feature missing in your main scripting language.

, VBScript or JavaScript.

For example, VBScript lacks the ability to display a file or folder browser, which JavaScript has.
AppleScript can be very slow to compute trigonometric functions (sine and cosine), but JavaScript
performs these calculations rapidly. JavaScript does not have a way to query Microsoft
contents of a specific spreadsheet cell, but both AppleScript and VBScript have this capability. In all
these examples, the

do script method can execute a snippet of scripting code in another language,

to overcome a limitation of the language used for the body of the script.

®

, you can run

®

Excel for the

 Creating a script “on the fly.” Your script can create a script (as a string) during its execution, which it

can then execute using the

do script method. This is a great way to create a custom dialog or panel

based on the contents of the selection or the attributes of objects the script creates.

 Embedding scripts in objects. Scripts can use the do script method to run scripts that were saved as

strings in the

label property of objects. Using this technique, an object can contain a script that

controls its layout properties or updates its content according to certain parameters. Scripts also can
be embedded in XML elements as an attribute of the element or as the contents of an element. See

“Running Scripts at Startup” on page 18

Sending parameters to do script

To send a parameter to a script executed by do script, use the following form (from the
DoScriptParameters tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Create a list of parameters.
set myParameters to {"Hello from do script", "Your message here."}

--Create a JavaScript as a string.
set myJavaScript to "alert(\"First argument: \" + arguments[0] +
\"\\rSecond argument: \" + arguments[1])"

--Run the JavaScript using the do script command.
do script myJavaScript language javascript with arguments myParameters

--Create an AppleScript as a string.
set myAppleScript to "tell application \"Adobe InDesign CS6\"" & return
set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "display dialog (\"First argument: \" &
item 1 of arguments & return & \"Second argument: \" & item 2 of arguments)" & return
set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "end tell"

--Run the AppleScript using the do script command.
do script myAppleScript language applescript language with arguments myParameters

end tell

.

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Using the do script Method 15

Returning values from do script

The following script fragment shows how to return a value from a script executed by do script. This
example uses a JavaScript that is executed as a string, but the same method works for script files. This
example returns a single value, but you can return multiple values by returning an array (for the complete
script, refer to the DoScriptReturnValues script).

set myDocument to document 1
set myPage to page 1 of myDocument
set myTextFrame to text frame 1 of myPage
tell myDocument

set myDestinationPage to make page
end tell
set myPageIndex to name of myDestinationPage
set myID to id of myTextFrame
set myJavaScript to "var myDestinationPage = arguments[1];" & return
set myJavaScript to myJavaScript & "myID = arguments[0];" & return
set myJavaScript to myJavaScript & "var myX = arguments[2];" & return
set myJavaScript to myJavaScript & "var myY = arguments[3];" & return
set myJavaScript to myJavaScript & "var myPageItem =
app.documents.item(0).pages.item(0).pageItems.itemByID(myID);" & return
set myJavaScript to myJavaScript &
"myPageItem.duplicate(app.documents.item(0).pages.item(myDestinationPage));" & return

--Create an array for the parameters we want to pass to the JavaScript.
set myArguments to {myID, myPageIndex, 0, 0}
set myDuplicate to do script myJavaScript language javascript with arguments
myArguments

--myDuplicate now contains a reference to the duplicated text frame.

--Change the text in the duplicated text frame.
set contents of myDuplicate to "Duplicated text frame."

Another way to get values from another script is to use the script args (short for “script arguments”)
object of the application. The following script fragment shows how to do this (for the complete script, see
DoScriptScriptArgs):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Create a string to be run as an AppleScript.

set myAppleScript to "tell application \"Adobe InDesign CS6\"" & return

set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "tell script args" & return

set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "set value name \"ScriptArgumentA\"

value \"This is the first AppleScript script argument value.\"" & return

set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "set value name \"ScriptArgumentB\"

value \"This is the second AppleScript script argument value.\"" & return

set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "end tell" & return

set myAppleScript to myAppleScript & "end tell"

--Run the AppleScript string.

do script myAppleScript language applescript language

--Retrieve the script argument values set by the script.

tell script args

set myScriptArgumentA to get value name "ScriptArgumentA"
set myScriptArgumentB to get value name "ScriptArgumentB"

end tell

--Display the script argument values in a dialog box.

display dialog "ScriptArgumentA: " & myScriptArgumentA & return & "ScriptArgumentB:
" & myScriptArgumentB

--Create a string to be run as a JavaScript.

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Controlling Undo with do Script 16

set myJavaScript to "app.scriptArgs.setValue(\"ScriptArgumentA\", \"This is the
first JavaScript script argument value.\");" & return

set myJavaScript to myJavaScript & "app.scriptArgs.setValue(\"ScriptArgumentB\",
\"This is the second JavaScript script argument value.\");" & return

--Run the JavaScript string.

do script myJavaScript language javascript

--Retrieve the script argument values set by the script.

tell script args

set myScriptArgumentA to get value name "ScriptArgumentA"
set myScriptArgumentB to get value name "ScriptArgumentB"

end tell

--Display the script argument values in a dialog box.

display dialog "ScriptArgumentA: " & myScriptArgumentA & return & "ScriptArgumentB:
" & myScriptArgumentB
end tell

Controlling Undo with do Script

InDesign gives you the ability to undo almost every action, but this comes at a price: for almost every
action you make, InDesign writes to disk. For normal work you using the tools presented by the user
interface, this does not present any problem. For scripts, which can perform thousands of actions in the
time a human being can blink, the constant disk access can be a serious drag on performance.

do script command offers a way around this performance bottleneck by providing two parameters

The
that control the way that scripts are executed relative to InDesign’s Undo behavior. These parameters are
shown in the following examples:

--Given a script "myAppleScript" and an array of parameters "myParameters"...
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"
do script myJavaScript language javascript with arguments myArguments undo mode fast
entire script undo name "Script Action"
end tell

--undo modes can be:

--auto unto: Add no events to the Undo queue.

--entire script: Put a single event in the Undo queue.

--fast entire script: Put a single event in the Undo queue.

--script request: Undo each script action as a separate event.

--The last parameter is the text that appears in the Undo menu item.

Working with Script Labels

Many objects in InDesign scripting have a label property, including page items (rectangles, ovals, groups,
polygons, text frames, and graphic lines), table cells, documents, stories, and pages. This property can
store a very large amount of text.

The label of page items can be viewed, entered, or edited using the Script Label panel (choose Window >
Utilities > Script Label to display this panel), shown below. You also can add a label to an object using
scripting, and you can read the script label via scripting. For many objects, like stories, pages, and
paragraph styles, you cannot set or view the label using the Script Label panel.

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Working with Script Labels 17

The label property can contain any form of text data, such as tab- or comma-delimited text, HTML, or
XML. Because scripts also are text, they can be stored in the

label property.

Page items can be referred to by their
layers) can be referred to by their

label, just like named items (such as paragraph styles, colors, or

name. The following script fragment demonstrates this special case of the

label property (for the complete script, see ScriptLabel):

set myDocument to make document
set myPage to page 1 of myDocument
set myPageWidth to page width of document preferences of myDocument
set myPageHeight to page height of document preferences of myDocument

--Create 10 random page items.
repeat with i from 1 to 10

set myX1 to my myGetRandom(0, myPageWidth, false)

set myY1 to my myGetRandom(0, myPageHeight, false)

set myX2 to my myGetRandom(0, myPageWidth, false)

set myY2 to my myGetRandom(0, myPageHeight, false)

tell myPage

set myRectangle to make rectangle with properties {geometric bounds:{myY1, myX1,

myY2, myX2}}

end tell

if my myGetRandom(0, 1, true) = 1 then

set label of myRectangle to "myScriptLabel"

end if
end repeat
set myCount to 0
repeat with i from 1 to count of page items of myPage

if label of page item i of myPage is "myScriptLabel" then

set myCount to myCount + 1

end if
end repeat
display dialog ("Found " & myCount & " page items with the label.")

--This function gets a random number in the range myStart to myEnd.
on myGetRandom(myStart, myEnd, myInteger)

set myRange to myEnd - myStart

if myInteger = true then

set myRandom to myStart + (random number from myStart to myEnd)

else

set myRandom to myStart + (random number from myStart to myEnd) as integer
end if
return myRandom

end myGetRandom

In addition, all objects that support the label property also support custom labels. A script can set a
custom label using the

insert label method, and extract the custom label using the extract label

method, as shown in the following script fragment (from the CustomLabel tutorial script):

CHAPTER 2: Scripting Features Running Scripts at Startup 18

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
tell view preferences of myDocument

set horizontal measurement units to points

set vertical measurement units to points
end tell
set myPage to page 1 of myDocument
tell myPage

set myRectangle to make rectangle with properties

{geometric bounds:{72, 72, 144, 144}}

--Insert a custom label using insert label. The first parameter is the

--name of the label, the second is the text to add to the label.

tell myRectangle

insert label key "CustomLabel" value "This is some text stored
in a custom label."

--Extract the text from the label and display it in an alert.

set myString to extract label key "CustomLabel"
end tell
display dialog ("Custom label contained: " & myString)

end tell

end tell

Running Scripts at Startup

To run a script when InDesign starts, put the script in the Startup Scripts folder in the Scripts folder (for
more information, see “Installing Scripts” in Adobe InDesign Scripting Tutorial).

3

Chapter Update Status

CS6 Changes • Updated list of what this chapter shows you how to do.

•Added section “Making an Adaptive Layout” on page 43

.

•Added section “Collecting and Dropping Content” on page 46

.

• Added subsection “Exporting to grayscale PDF” on page 53

.

• Added subsection “Exporting as a PDF form” on page 56

.

•In “Adjusting Page Sizes and Layout” on page 41

, “Resizing and reframing pages” on page 41, and “Transforming pages” on

page 42, removed outdated references to features being new in CS5.

Documents

The work you do in InDesign revolves around documents—creating them, saving them, printing or
exporting them, and populating them with page items, colors, styles, and text. Almost every
document-related task can be automated using InDesign scripting.

This chapter shows you how to do the following

 Perform basic document-management tasks, including:

 Creating a new document.

 Opening a document.

 Saving a document.

 Closing a document.

 Perform basic page-layout operations, including:

 Setting the page size and document length.

 Defining bleed and slug areas.

 Specifying page columns and margins.

 Change the appearance of the pasteboard.

 Use guides and grids.

 Change measurement units and ruler origin.

 Define and apply document presets.

 Set up master pages (master spreads)

 Set text-formatting defaults.

 Add XMP metadata (information about a file).

 Create a document template.

 Create watermarks.

19

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Document Operations 20



Apply different sizes to different pages (multiple page sizes).

 Apply flexible layout formats to the same pages for use in different devices or documents with

different sizes or orientation.

 Print a document.

 Export a document as Adobe PDF.

 Export pages of a document as EPS.

 Export a document as an ePub file.

We assume that you have already read Adobe InDesign Scripting Tutorial and know how to create, install,
and run a script.

Basic Document Operations

Opening, closing, and saving documents are some of the most basic document tasks. This section shows
how to do them using scripting.

Creating a new document

The following script shows how to make a new document using scripting. (For the complete script, see
MakeDocument.)

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document

end tell

To create a document using a document preset, the make command includes an optional parameter you
can use to specify a document preset, as shown in the following script. (For the complete script, see
MakeDocumentWithPreset.)

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Replace "myDocumentPreset" in the following line with the name

--of the document preset you want to use.
set myDocument to make document with properties
{document preset:"myDocumentPreset"}

end tell

You can create a document without displaying it in a window, as shown in the following script fragment
(from the MakeDocumentWithParameters tutorial script):

--Creates a new document without showing the document window.

--The "showing window" parameter controls the visibility of the document.

--Hidden documents are not minimized, and will not appear until

--you tell the document to create a new window.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document with properties {showing window:false}

--To show the window:

--tell myDocument

--set myWindow to make window

--end tell

end tell

Some script operations are much faster when the document window is hidden.

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Document Operations 21

Opening a document

The following script shows how to open an existing document. (For the complete script, see
OpenDocument.)

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--You'll have to fill in your own file path.
set myDocument to open "yukino:myTestDocument.indd"

end tell

You can choose to prevent the document from displaying (that is, hide it) by setting the showing window
parameter of the
performance of a script. To show a hidden document, create a new window, as shown in the following
script fragment (from the OpenDocumentInBackground tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--You can use the "showing window" parameter to open files

--without displaying them. This can speed up many scripting

--operations, and makes it possible for a script to operate

--on a file in the background. To display a document you've

--opened this way, tell the document to create a new window.

--You'll have to fill in your own file path.
set myDocument to open "yukino:myTestDocument.indd" <lb>
without showing window

--At this point, your script could change or get information

--from the hidden document. Once you've done that, you can show

--the document window:
tell myDocument to make window

end tell

open command to false (the default is true). You might want to do this to improve

Saving a document

In the InDesign user interface, you save a file by choosing File > Save, and you save a file to another file
name by choosing File > Save As. In InDesign scripting, the
shown in the following script fragment (from the SaveDocument tutorial script):

--Saves the active document.

--If the active document has been changed since it was last saved, save it.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

if modified of active document is true then

tell active document to save

end if

end tell

The save command has two optional parameters: The first (to) specifies the file to save to; the second

stationery) can be set to true to save the document as a template, as shown in the following script

(
fragment (from the SaveDocumentAs tutorial script):

--If the active document has not been saved (ever), save it.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

if saved of active document is false then

--If you do not provide a file name, InDesign displays the Save dialog box.
tell active document to save saving in "yukino:myTestDocument.indd"

end if

end tell

You can save a document as a template, as shown in the following script fragment (from the
SaveAsTemplate tutorial script):

save command can do either operation, as

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Document Operations 22

--Save the active document as a template.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to active document
tell myDocument

if saved is true then

--Convert the file name to a string.

set myFileName to full name

set myFileName to my myReplace(myFileName, ".indd", ".indt")
else

--If the document has not been saved, then give it a default file

--name/file path. You'll have to fill in the file path.

set myFileName to "yukino:myTestDocument.indt"
end if
save to myFileName with stationery

end tell
end tell
on myReplace(myString, myFindString, myChangeString)

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to myFindString

set myTextList to every text item of (myString as text)

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to myChangeString

set myString to myTextList as string

set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""

return myString
end myReplace

Closing a document

The close command closes a document, as shown in the following script fragment (from the
CloseDocument tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

close document 1

--document 1 always refers to the front-most document.

--Note that you could also use:

--close active document

end tell

The close command can take up to two optional parameters, as shown in the following script fragment
(from the CloseWithParameters tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Use "saving yes" to save the document,

--or "saving no" to close the document without saving,

--or "saving ask" to display a prompt. If you use

--"saving yes",you'll need to provide a reference

--to a file to save to in the second parameter (saving in).

--If the file has never been saved (it's an untitled file),

--display a prompt.

if saved of active document is not equal to true then

close active document saving ask

--Or, to save to a specific file name

--(you'll have to fill in the file path):

--set myFile to "yukino:myTestDocument.indd"

--close active document saving yes saving in myFile

else

--If the file has already been saved to a file, save it.
close active document saving yes

end if
end tell

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 23

You can close all open documents without saving them, as shown in the following script fragment (from
the CloseAll tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

tell documents to close without saving
end tell

Basic Page Layout

Each document has a default page size, assigned number of pages, bleed and slug working areas, and
columns and margins to define the area into which material is placed. Again, all these parameters are
accessible to scripting, as shown in the examples in this section.

Defining page size and document length

When you create a new document using the InDesign user interface, you can specify the default page size,
number of pages, page orientation, and whether the document uses facing pages. To create a document
using InDesign scripting, use the
creating a document, you can use the
the following script fragment (from the DocumentPreferences tutorial script):

make document command, which does not specify these settings. After

document preferences object to control the settings, as shown in

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document

tell document preferences of myDocument

set page height to "800pt"
set page width to "600pt"
set page orientation to landscape
set pages per document to 16

end tell
end tell

NOTE: The application object also has a document preferences object. You can set the application
defaults for page height, page width, and other properties by changing the properties of this object. You
can also set individual page sizes; see “Adjusting Page Sizes and Layout”

Defining bleed and slug areas

Within InDesign, a bleed or a slug is an area outside the page margins that can be printed or included in an
exported PDF. Typically, these areas are used for objects that extend beyond the page edges (bleed) and
job/document information (slug). The two areas can be printed and exported independently; for example,
you might want to omit slug information for the final printing of a document. The following script shows
how to set up the bleed and slug for a new document. (For the complete script, see BleedAndSlug.)

.

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 24

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Create a new document.

set myDocument to make document

--The bleed and slug properties belong to the document preferences object.

tell document preferences of myDocument

--Bleed
set document bleed bottom offset to "3p"
set document bleed top offset to "3p"
set document bleed inside or left offset to "3p"
set document bleed outside or right offset to "3p"

--Slug
set slug bottom offset to "18p"
set slug top offset to "3p"
set slug inside or left offset to "3p"
set slug right or outside offset to "3p"

end tell
end tell

Alternately, if all the bleed distances are equal, as in the preceding example, you can use the document

bleed uniform size property, as shown in the following script fragment (from the UniformBleed tutorial

script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Create a new document.

set myDocument to make document

--The bleed properties belong to the document preferences object.

tell document preferences of myDocument

--Bleed
set document bleed top offset to "3p"
set document bleed uniform size to true

end tell
end tell

If all the slug distances are equal, you can use the document slug uniform size property, as shown in the
following script fragment (from the UniformSlug tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Create a new document.

set myDocument to make document

--The bleed properties belong to the document preferences object.

tell document preferences of myDocument

--Slug
set document slug uniform size to true
set slug top offset to "3p"

end tell
end tell

In addition to setting the bleed and slug widths and heights, you can control the color used to draw the
guides defining the bleed and slug. This property is not in the

pasteboard preferences object, as shown in the following script fragment (from the

in the

document preferences object; instead, it is

BleedSlugGuideColors tutorial script):

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 25

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

--Assumes you have a document open.

tell pasteboard preferences of active document

--Any of InDesign's guides can use the UIColors constants...
set bleed guide color to cute teal
set slug guide color to charcoal

--...or you can specify a list of RGB values

--(with values from 0 to 255)
set bleed guide color to {0, 198, 192}
set slug guide color to {192, 192, 192}

end tell
end tell

Setting page margins and columns

Each page in a document can have its own margin and column settings. With InDesign scripting, these
properties are part of the
new document, then sets the margins and columns for all pages in the master spread. (For the complete
script, see PageMargins.)

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document

tell view preferences of myDocument

set horizontal measurement units to points

set vertical measurement units to points
end tell
tell master spread 1 of myDocument

tell margin preferences of pages

set top to 36
set left to 36
set bottom to 48
set right to 36

end tell
end tell

end tell

margin preferences object for each page. This following sample script creates a

To set the page margins for an individual page, use the margin preferences for that page, as shown in the
following script fragment (from the PageMarginsForOnePage tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
tell view preferences of myDocument

set horizontal measurement units to points

set vertical measurement units to points
end tell
tell margin preferences of page 1 of myDocument

set top to 36

set left to 36

set bottom to 48

set right to 36
end tell

end tell

InDesign does not allow you to create a page that is smaller than the sum of the relevant margins; that is,
the width of the page must be greater than the sum of the left and right page margins, and the height of
the page must be greater than the sum of the top and bottom margins. If you are creating very small
pages (for example, for individual newspaper advertisements) using the InDesign user interface, you can

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 26

easily set the correct margin sizes as you create the document, by entering new values in the document
default page Margin fields in the New Document dialog box.

From scripting, however, the solution is not as clear: when you create a document, it uses the application’s
default-margin preferences. These margins are applied to all pages of the document, including master
pages. Setting the document margin preferences affects only new pages and has no effect on existing
pages. If you try to set the page height and page width to values smaller than the sum of the
corresponding margins on any existing pages, InDesign does not change the page size.

There are two solutions. The first is to set the margins of the existing pages before you try to change the
page size, as shown in the following script fragment (from the PageMarginsForSmallPages tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
tell margin preferences of page 1 of myDocument

set top to 0

set left to 0

set bottom to 0

set right to 0
end tell
tell master spread 1 of myDocument

tell margin preferences of pages

set top to 0
set left to 0
set bottom to 0
set right to 0

end tell
end tell

--At this point, you can set your page size to a small width

--and height (1x1 picas minimum).
set page height of document preferences of myDocument to "1p"
set page width of document preferences of myDocument to "6p"

end tell

Alternately, you can change the application’s default-margin preferences before you create the document,
as shown in the following script fragment (from the ApplicationPageMargins tutorial script):

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 27

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

tell margin preferences

--Save the current application default margin preferences.

set myY1 to top

set myX1 to left

set myY2 to bottom

set myX2 to right

--Set the application default margin preferences.

set top to 0

set left to 0

set bottom to 0

set right to 0
end tell

--At this point, you can create a new document.
set myDocument to make document

--At this point, you can set your page size to a small width and height

--(1x1 picas minimum).
set page height of document preferences of myDocument to "1p"
set page width of document preferences of myDocument to "1p"

--Reset the application default margin preferences to their former state.
tell margin preferences

set top to myY1

set left to myX1

set bottom to myY2

set right to myX2
end tell

end tell

Changing the appearance of the pasteboard

The pasteboard is the area that surrounds InDesign pages and spreads. You can use it for temporary
storage of page items or for job-tracking information. You can change the size of the pasteboard and its
color using scripting. The

preview background color property sets the color of the pasteboard in Preview

mode, as shown in the following script fragment (from the PasteboardPreferences tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
tell pasteboard preferences of myDocument

--You can use either a number or a measurement string to set the

--space above/below.

set minimum space above and below to "12p"

--You can set the pasteboard background color to any

--of the predefined UIColor constants...

set preview background color to gray

--...or you can specify an array of RGB values

--(with values from 0 to 255)

--set preview Background Color to {192, 192, 192}

end tell

end tell

Guides and grids

Guides and grids make it easy to position objects on your document pages. These are very useful items to
add when you are creating templates for others to use.

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 28

Defining guides

Guides in InDesign give you an easy way to position objects on the pages of your document. The following
script fragment shows how to use guides. (For the complete script, see Guides.)

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
set myPageWidth to page width of document preferences of myDocument
set myPageHeight to page height of document preferences of myDocument
tell page 1 of myDocument

set myMarginPreferences to margin preferences

--Place guides at the margins of the page.

make guide with properties {orientation:vertical,

location:left of myMarginPreferences}

make guide with properties {orientation:vertical,

location:(myPageWidth - (right of myMarginPreferences))}

make guide with properties {orientation:horizontal,

location:top of myMarginPreferences}

make guide with properties {orientation:horizontal,

location:(myPageHeight - (bottom of myMarginPreferences))}

--Place a guide at the vertical center of the page.

make guide with properties {orientation:vertical,

location:(myPageWidth / 2)}

--Place a guide at the horizontal center of the page.

make guide with properties {orientation:horizontal,

location:(myPageHeight / 2)}
end tell

end tell

Horizontal guides can be limited to a given page or extend across all pages in a spread. From InDesign
scripting, you can control this using the

fit to page property. This property is ignored by vertical guides.

You can use scripting to change the layer, color, and visibility of guides, just as you can from the user
interface, as shown in the following script fragment (from the GuideOptions tutorial script):

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 29

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
tell myDocument

--Create a layer named "guide layer".

set myLayer to make layer with properties {name:"guide layer"}

--Add a series of guides to page 1.

tell page 1

--Create a guide on the layer we created above.
make guide with properties {orientation:horizontal, <lb>
location:"12p", item layer:myLayer}
make guide with properties {item layer:myLayer, <lb>
orientation:horizontal, location:"14p"}

--Make a locked guide.
make guide with properties {locked:true, <lb>
orientation:horizontal, location:"16p"}

--Set the view threshold of a guide.
make guide with properties {view threshold:100, <lb>
orientation:horizontal, location:"18p"}

--Set the guide color of a guide using a UIColors constant.
make guide with properties {guide color:gray, <lb>
orientation:horizontal, location:"20p"}

--Set the guide color of a guide using an RGB array.
make guide with properties {guide color:{192, 192, 192}, <lb>
orientation:horizontal, location:"22p"}

end tell
end tell

end tell

You also can create guides using the create guides command on spreads and master spreads, as shown
in the following script fragment (from the CreateGuides tutorial script):

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
tell spread 1 of myDocument

--Parameters (all optional): row count, column count, row gutter,

--column gutter, guide color, fit margins, remove existing, layer.

--Note that the create guides command does not take an RGB

--array for the guide color parameter.

create guides number of rows 4 number of columns 4 row gutter "1p" <lb>

column gutter "1p" guide color gray with fit margins and remove existing
end tell

end tell

Setting grid preferences

To control the properties of the document and baseline grid, you set the properties of the grid

preferences object, as shown in the following script fragment (from the DocumentAndBaselineGrid

tutorial script):

CHAPTER 3: Documents Basic Page Layout 30

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to make document
set horizontal measurement units of view preferences of myDocument to points
set vertical measurement units of view preferences of myDocument to points
tell grid preferences of myDocument

set baseline start to 56

set baseline division to 14

set baseline grid shown to true

set horizontal gridline division to 14

set horizontal grid subdivision to 5

set vertical gridline division to 14

set vertical grid subdivision to 5

set document grid shown to true
end tell

end tell

Snapping to guides and grids

All snap settings for a document’s grids and guides are in the properties of the guide preferences and

grid preferences objects. The following script fragment shows how to set guide and grid snap

properties. (For the complete script, see GuideGridPreferences.)

tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set myDocument to active document
tell guide preferences of myDocument

set guides in back to true

set guides locked to false

set guides shown to true

set guides snapto to true
end tell
tell grid preferences of myDocument

set document grid shown to false

set document grid snapto to true

--Objects "snap" to the baseline grid when guidePreferences.guideSnapTo

--is set to true.

set baseline grid shown to true
end tell

end tell

Changing measurement units and ruler

Thus far, the sample scripts used measurement strings, strings that force InDesign to use a specific
measurement unit (for example, “8.5i” for 8.5 inches). They do this because you might be using a different
measurement system when you run the script.

To specify the measurement system used in a script, use the document’s
shown in the following script fragment (from the ViewPreferences tutorial script):

view preferences object, as