I cannot figure out how to obtain the words that follow after a particular word that appears somewhere on an InDesign CS2 document. For example, the words that follow the word "expires " (not including the space). It gets so darn confusing with object references.
For example:
“This Advertisement Expires 00/00/00”
I am trying to find the “00/00/00” and then attach a variable to it.
That way, I could assign that value “??/??/??” to a variable which would become the new search criteria.
Any thoughts?
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
activate
set foundExpire to {}
set theExpire to "expires"
tell document 1
set searchResults to search every line of every story for theExpire
set textFrameResults to count of text frames with theExpire
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults
set theLine to line 1 of selection
repeat with i in theLine
--set ???????????
end repeat
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
end tell
I may try that. But I won’t ever know the characters that follow the word “Expires”.
This is what I have so far, and it is getting close. Yet, I don’t think I will use the character list?
property charList : {"e", "x", "p", "i", "r", "e", "s", " "}
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
activate
set foundExpire to {}
set theExpire to "Expires"
tell document 1
set searchResults to search every line of every story for theExpire
set textFrameResults to count of text frames with theExpire
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults
set theLine to line 1 of selection
set theSelection to text in theLine
set objRef to object reference of every word of line 1 of selection
repeat with wordCount in objRef
set wordCount to count of words in line 1 of selection
set expireWordCount to every word in line 1 of selection is equal to theExpire
set dateRange to word 2 of line 1 of selection
end repeat
end repeat
end repeat
end tell
end tell
If you set the text item delimiters to expires, and then reassemble the first three words following it with “/” as the delimiter, you’ll get the date.
set tText to "This document expires 09/05/07 and will be superceded by bletch."
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "expires"
set Pieces to words 1 thru 3 of item 2 of text items of tText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set tDate to Pieces as string
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
tDate --> "09/05/07"
Do you actually want to go about this by finding the word after your search terms, or is your goal just to find the string of numbers? If the latter, then you should try using the number wildcard. If you have a legitimate reason to do the former, then I’d obtain refs using a whose clause and repeat through that list to obtain “the word after” the current ref. I recommend reading the Indesign Scripting Guide on Adobe’s site to better understand it.
It will always be a string of numbers, or else I will error out the script. But there are times when it may be 1/2/08 or 11/2/2008, etc. But as you can see, it will always be the word after Expires.
I played around prior to seeing these last two posts. I came up with this goofy but seemingly effective workaround. Does my logic make sense?
I would like to condense this if at all possible. I have a feeling I will be using text item delimitirs. Thank you both.
set exNum to 1
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
activate
set foundExpire to {}
set theExpire to "expires"
tell document 1
try
set searchResults to search every story for theExpire
set textFrameResults to count of text frames with theExpire
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults
try
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults
end try
try
set end of foundExpire to text of selection
end try
end repeat
end repeat
set finalExpireCount to (count of foundExpire) as string
---Above this line will end up with an "Epires" selected on the document
set theSelection to selection
set theLine to line 1 of selection
set objRef to object reference of every word of line 1 of selection
set expireWords to every word in line 1 of selection
repeat with xExp in expireWords
if xExp does not contain "Expires" then
set exNum to exNum + 1
if xExp contains "Expires" then exit repeat
end if
end repeat
set theNumber to word exNum of line 1 of selection
display dialog theNumber
end try
end tell
end tell
Had a little play around with this one with some good results on my machine and indesign.
Can’t say if it will work for you.
Just had one doc with one text frame with a load of text in “expires 00/00/00” etc. plus other words.
so you would have to alter for multiple text frames, pages etc…
But like i say this worked for me!!
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS3"
tell document 1
tell text frame 1
set b to count words
repeat with i from 1 to b
if "expires" is in word i then
set y to i + 1
set theexpdate to text returned of (display dialog (word y as string) default answer "??/??/??")
set word y to theexpdate
end if
end repeat
end tell
end tell
end tell
Pidge,
Your solution was exactly what I was looking for”once again! THANK YOU. FWIW, I have it using the line rather than the text frame, since a selection will always be on the word “expires” before I run this script. No, I didn’t realize that before I posted this.
I don’t know why, but I think I had to change a line or two? e.g.,
if word i is equal to “expires” then
-Or am I just tired and stupid?
Funny thing is I thought my previous solution was working. Boy was I wrong!!! Here’s what I have that seems to work great.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
tell document 1
--tell text frame 1
tell line 1 of selection
set b to count words
repeat with i from 1 to b
try
if word i is equal to "expires" then
set Y to i + 1
--set theexpdate to word Y as string
--display dialog Y as string
set theNumber to word Y
--display dialog theNumber
end if
end try
end repeat
end tell
end tell
end tell
Marc, (or anyone willing to help)
The wildcard search is more beneficial than I originally thought. I learned a bunch of good stuff from you all!!!
Here’s my present dilemma. Using two searches, I can obtain all 7 variations the dates may exist in a document. For example:
0/0/00
0/00/00
00/00/00
0/00/0000
00/00/0000
00/0/0000
0/0/0000
That’s fantastic, but somehow I need to figure out a way to assign a variable to the dates the script finds as it repeats through the search. This is probably done by a handler? I looked through my books but I don’t see where or how I could capture the dates (as a variable). Maybe I can log the results and attach a variable that way? There must be a simple solution I am overlooking?
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
activate
tell document 1
try
set theExpire1 to "^9/^9/^9"
set searchResults1 to search every story for theExpire1
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults1
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults1
try
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults1
set theSelDate1 to the word 1 of selection
display dialog theSelDate1
end try
end repeat
end repeat
end try
try
set theExpire2 to "^9/^9^9/^9"
set searchResults2 to search every story for theExpire2
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults2
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults2
try
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults2
set theSelDate2 to the word 1 of selection
display dialog theSelDate2
end try
end repeat
end repeat
end try
end tell
end tell
Something like this (I’m assuming you want AppleScript dates, and a few well placed tells would clean this up)
set tD to {"1/2/07", "1/12/06", "10/13/07", "3/14/2007", "11/22/2007", "12/3/2007", "4/5/2007"}
set newD to {}
repeat with D in tD
set tid to AppleScript's text item delimiters
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "/"
set S to text items of contents of D
if (count of item 1 of S) is 1 then set item 1 of S to "0" & item 1 of S
if (count of item 2 of S) is 1 then set item 2 of S to "0" & item 2 of S
if (count of item 3 of S) is 2 then set item 3 of S to "20" & item 3 of S
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tid
set S to item 3 of S & item 1 of S & item 2 of S
set end of newD to S as «class isot» as date
end repeat
newD --> {date "Wednesday, January 2, 2002 12:00:00 AM", date "Thursday, January 12, 2012 12:00:00 AM", date "Sunday, October 13, 2013 12:00:00 AM", date "Wednesday, March 14, 2007 12:00:00 AM", date "Thursday, November 22, 2007 12:00:00 AM", date "Monday, December 3, 2007 12:00:00 AM", date "Thursday, April 5, 2007 12:00:00 AM"}
Hi Adam,
That’s not exactly what I was after, but it sure is a great thing to have and see how it works. So thank you very much. What I was trying to do, was find date that were in a document and just gather them in a list so I could compare them with another date later on. I should have explained myself better. An hour ago I didn’t know how to obtain a list. But I think this is what I need. - I was looking in the wrong section of the book
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS2"
activate
set dateRanges to {}
tell document 1
try
set theExpire1 to "^9/^9/^9"
set searchResults1 to search every story for theExpire1
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults1
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults1
try
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults1
set theSelDate1 to the word 1 of selection
set end of dateRanges to theSelDate1
--display dialog theSelDate1
end try
end repeat
end repeat
end try
try
set theExpire2 to "^9/^9^9/^9"
set searchResults2 to search every story for theExpire2
repeat with X from 1 to count of searchResults2
repeat with Y from 1 to count of item X of searchResults2
try
set selection to item Y of item X of searchResults2
set theSelDate2 to the word 1 of selection as string
set end of dateRanges to theSelDate2
--display dialog theSelDate2
end try
end repeat
end repeat
end try
end tell
end tell
set theResults to dateRanges as list
