I’m looking to create a fairly simple script to replace fonts in 100’s of Indesign CS 5.5 documents. I’ve scoured MacScripter but cannot seem to find what I’m needing.
Basically I need to search for two specific fonts, that are common on all documents, and replace them with another font.
Example:
Find all text in all stories that contain Helvetica - Bold and replace with Times - Italic
I found the following but this is actually just changing one particular glyph. I’m needing all characters changed.
Any help would be appreciated.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
activate
if not (exists active document) then
display dialog "No document is open." with icon 2
else
set myDocument to active document
set myClass to class of active spread of layout window 1 of myDocument as string
if myClass is "master spread" then
display dialog "This script does not work on master pages. Switch to a regular layout page and try again." buttons {"Cancel"} default button 1 with icon 2
else
set user interaction level of script preferences to never interact
set find text preferences to nothing
set change text preferences to nothing
set find grep preferences to nothing
set change grep preferences to nothing
set find object preferences to nothing
set find object preferences to nothing
set find glyph preferences to nothing
set change glyph preferences to nothing
set properties of find glyph preferences to {applied font:"Zapf Dingbats", font style:"Regular", glyph ID:"81"}
set properties of change glyph preferences to {applied font:"Times", font style:"Regular", glyph ID:"81"}
change glyph
set user interaction level of script preferences to interact with all
end if
end if
end tell
I have found a much more efficient way of handling this which i will include below.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
-- clear existing settings
set properties to {find text preferences:nothing, change text preferences:nothing}
-- set option
set properties of find change text options to {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}
--set up new settings
set properties of find text preferences to {applied font:"Myriad Pro", font style:"Regular"}
set properties of change text preferences to {applied font:"Frutiger", font style:"57 Condensed"}
-- make the change
change text document 1
end tell
Any help on how to make this run on a large number of files in a folder would be greatly appreciated.
Well I solved my problem myself…haha. took hours but it’s done. Posting here for future inquiries on the subject. Thanks for letting me rant.
tell application "Finder"
set myInFolder to choose folder with prompt "Select a folder"
set myFilelist to files in myInFolder whose name ends with ".indd"
end tell
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
set user interaction level of script preferences to never interact
repeat with myDoc from (count myFilelist) to 1 by -1
set myCurrentFile to item myDoc of myFilelist
open myCurrentFile
set myCurDocument to active document
tell myCurDocument
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
-- clear existing settings
set properties to {find text preferences:nothing, change text preferences:nothing}
-- set option
set properties of find change text options to {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}
--set up new settings
set properties of find text preferences to {applied font:"Myriad Pro", font style:"Regular"}
set properties of change text preferences to {applied font:"Gotham", font style:"Bold"}
-- make the change
change text document 1
end tell
close saving yes -- save and close
end tell
end repeat
set user interaction level of script preferences to interact with all
beep 3
display alert "Finished!"
end tell
Overall, your script is fine. Just a few notes: no need to tell application “Adobe InDesign CS5.5” twice like you did here:
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
set user interaction level of script preferences to never interact
repeat with myDoc from (count myFilelist) to 1 by -1
set myCurrentFile to item myDoc of myFilelist
open myCurrentFile
set myCurDocument to active document
tell myCurDocument
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
You can remove the second one.
And this:
set properties of find change text options to {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}
you only need to tell once per “session”. So move it right before the beginning of your repeat loop, but still inside the tell app. block. It will save a little bit of time. Only put things inside a repeat loop that absolutely need to be there or change because of the loop.
Also, might not work, but I think you can change these two lines:
open myCurrentFile
set myCurDocument to active document
to only this:
set myCurDocument to open myCurrentFile
again, will save a bit of time by assigning the document to be opened to the variable right away.
I migt be missing other stuff, but this is what is apparent to me for now.
Cheers!
Browser: Safari 534.51.22
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.8)
Thank you so much for replying! I applied several of your comments to the script and it is indeed much faster. It never amazes me how many different ways you can skin a cat.
Since Adobe will no longer be supporting Type 1 fonts, I had to do something very similar. So here’s my version of an AppleScript inDesign font replacer
set fontReplacements to {¬
({findFontName:"Benton Gothic" & tab & "Bold", findFontStyle:"Bold", changeFontName:"BentonGothic-Bold Bold", changeFontStyle:"Bold"}), ¬
({findFontName:"Benton Gothic" & tab & "Regular", findFontStyle:"Regular", changeFontName:"BentonGothic-Regular Regular", changeFontStyle:"Regular"}) ¬
}
tell application "Adobe InDesign 2023"
-- settings and option
set properties to {find text preferences:nothing, change text preferences:nothing}
set properties of find change text options to {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}
repeat with thisReplacement in fontReplacements
set fontToFind to findFontName of thisReplacement
set fontToFindStyle to findFontStyle of thisReplacement
set changeFont to changeFontName of thisReplacement
set changeFontStyle to changeFontStyle of thisReplacement
set properties of find text preferences to {applied font:fontToFind, font style:fontToFindStyle}
set properties of change text preferences to {applied font:changeFont, font style:changeFontStyle}
change text active document
end repeat
end tell
