About

Some example scripts for InDesign automation control on Mac.

About appscript

• Installation: pip install appscript
• HP: http://appscript.sourceforge.net/

Keyword conversion

click here

• Characters a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and underscores (_) are preserved.
• Spaces, hyphens (-) and forward slashes (/) are replaced with underscores.
• Ampersands (&) are replaced by the word 'and'.
• All other characters are converted to 0x00-style hexadecimal representations.
• Names that match Python keywords or names reserved by appscript have an underscore appended. (※)

※example: class--> class_ , properties--> properties_

Usage

from appscript import *

indd = app("Adobe InDesign CC 2019")
# print(indd.version())
doc = indd.active_document
# print(doc.name())
tfs = doc.text_frames
# print(len(tfs()))
first_tf = tfs[1] # 1-based indexing
characters = first_tf.characters

Add new object

# syntax: parent_object.make(new=k.type)
indd.make(new=k.document) # add a new document
doc.make(new=k.page) # add a new page to doc
doc.pages[1].make(new=k.text_frame) # add a new text frame to page 1
first_tf.make(new=k.table) # add a new talbe to first_tf

Get type/class of an object

doc.class_() # k.document
first_tf.class_() # k.text_frame

Method with keyword

# same to python keyword arguments
doc.close(saving=k.ask, saving_in="path/to/file.indd")

Get value

doc.name()
first_tf.contents()

or

doc.name.get()
first_tf.contents.get()

Set value

first_tf.contents.set("sample contents")
first_tf.fill_color.set("Cyan")
first_tf.geometric_bounds.set([0,0,50,100])

or

# set properties at one time (this is faster)
first_tf.properties_.set({
        k.contents: "sample contents",
        k.fill_color: "Cyan",
        k.geometric_bounds: [0,0,50,100]
    })

Get item

by name

tfs["abc"] # return the 1st text frame whose name is "abc"
# javascript: tfs.itemByName("abc")

by id

tfs.ID(1234) # return text frame whose ID is 1234
# javascript: tfs.itemByID(1234)

by range

characters[1:3] # note: include the 3rd item !!!!!
# javascript: characters.itemByRange(0, 2)

Performance

When running a script in InDesign, it operates at a significantly slower speed of approximately 30% compared to officially supported languages such as JavaScript, AppleScript, and VBScript. This is due to the InDesign document continually redrawing during script execution, which significantly slows down processing times.

# Note that this will not speed up processing.
indd.script_preferences.enable_redraw.set(False)

Sample code

• 00_application
• 01_document
• 02_text_frame --> result example
• 03_set_ruby_to_textframe
• 04_layer
• 05_character --> result example
• 06_paragraph --> result example
• 07_font --> result example
• 08_table/cell --> result example
• 09_graphic --> result example
• 10_pdf
• 11_find_and_change_text --> example
  • find/change_text
  • find/change_grep
• 12_export_selection_to_image
  • GUI
  • Usage
• 13_find_all_imgs_smaller_than_350dpi
• 14_export_table_to_Excel --> example
• 15_export_document_to_idml
• 16_InDesign_vs_ChatGPT --> example
• 17_xml --> example1, example2, test data