I develop textbooks that have margin icons that include descriptive text. There are “Key Concept” icons, “Discuss” icons, and a few others. Right now, it’s a manual process to place the correct icons in the margins and enter the unique text for each.

1. Indesign Scripting Tutorial

Many cool InDesign scripts for time-saving automation of publishing and designing. InDesign scripts may involve unexpectedly complicate solutions for addressing tasks that seemed initially quite easy, as well as unexpectedly simple codes for solving crooked problems! The mood of the 10th episode of our ISFR series reflects this ambivalence quite well.

Adobe InDesign custom editorial publishing solutions allow you to optimize production and streamline design using XML, IDML, XMP, and other scripting resources.

I’m wondering if we could make this more automated by having our instructional designers enter the icon info as footnotes in a Word document and running a script when we import into InDesign that places the correct icon and the indicated text. Basically, the script would run like the one listed above, but also place one of several graphics (which includes a clear box) overtop the side note. (Even if it’s not possible, this script could save us a lot of time.).

Hi, I wonder if you could help me. I have to create certificates (lots of), which need to saved as individual PDFs with e-mail address as titles.

On each page of the document there is an e-mail style. I’m trying to create a scripts as follows: (Indesign – 1st page of the document) find style “e-mail” – copy all text in that box – export page as pfd – paste e-mail text on the title bar – save document (as “XXX”.pdf) – go to next page (1+1) – repeat the previous – and so on, till the end of the document.

Indesign Scripting Tutorial

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many Thanks, Juha Sorsa.

Quickly see how to install a script. Consider a donation to the developer Almost all of the scripts in the list are free. For each of them, you’ll find a link to the page of the developer who wrote the script. Some of them accept donations in their websites. So, think about how much time their scripts have saved you, visit their website, and make a donation.

Save before launching the script (important) Before running a script in InDesign, save your documents. It might happen that the result of the script is not what you wanted, or that the script fails in some way. The changes made by the scripts are usually reversible using the Undo function (Cmd/Ctrl + Z).

However, some scripts perform a lot of changes under the hood, so you might find yourself having to “undo” hundreds of times. It is way better to save first, just in case. The ultimate InDesign scripts list This is the list of the scripts we collected. We divided them into sections for easy consultation. Click on one of the entries of the list to go directly to that section.

You'll find the link to the instructions of each script in its description at the link. Please read them before launching each script. Categories:. Numbers, Prices, and Fractions 28. Price adjuster (by ) The script helps with adjusting prices. You can multiply them, change the currency, the format, the separator, add a character style, etc.

If you often work with tables and pricing in tables, you might want to read this post about. Exchange thousand separators and decimal indicators (by ) The script helps you in exchanging thousand separators and decimal separators (dots/commas in numbers) from English to non-English style and vice versa. Format Fractions (by ) - $69.99 The script properly adapts fractions to the text appearance. Adobe in the 2017 version added the support to fractions for OpenType fonts, but still not for TrueType or PostScript Fonts. Also, not all the OpenType Fonts support fractions, and applying the formatting is still a laborious work.

This script does the job in an advanced, no-brain way. Tables & Charts 31. Tables using data merge (by Loic Aigon) InlineMerge flows all your datamerge records in one unique frame.

If you need some help with data merge,. Pie Chart Builder (by Eddy) The script Claquos helps you with creating pie charts directly in InDesign. Pay attention, it's in beta. Unembed embedded images (by ) The script extracts both embedded and pasted images, saves them into a given folder, and replaces them with linked images. Place inline images updated Two scripts for the same function also here. One is by, it finds text between two @ characters – e.g.

@ – and replaces it with the image that has the same name. The other is by and simply replaces words with images (This last one is also reversible).

By Kasyan by Rorohiko 35. Open All RGB Images (by ) The script searches TIFFs and PSDs which are in RGB or Grayscale color mode and opens them in Photoshop. Convert RGB/CMYK images to Grayscale (by ) Opens all RGB/CMYK images from the active InDesign document in Photoshop and converts them to Grayscale. Do a back-up of the data before running this script. Show Text Overrides (by ) The script enables a hidden feature that shows which parts of the text have been overridden.

Highlight paragraph and character styles (by Marc Autret) StyLighter highlights each paragraph and character style with different colors, and shows which parts of the text have been overridden. Local Formatting to Character Styles (by ) These three scripts work together to create and associate Character Styles to inline formatting. Create paragraph and character styles (by Thomas Silkjaer) The script automatically creates paragraph and character styles and assigns them to the text. Convert Nested Styles into Character Styles (by ) The script converts nested styles into locally-formatted character styles (overriding any manually applied character style that conflicts with the nested style). It works on nested, GREP, and inline styles. Delete empty paragraph style groups (by ) The script deletes empty paragraph style groups.

Batch import paragraph and character styles (by Thomas B. Nielsen) This script lets you batch import paragraph and character styles from a source document in documents stored in a folder.

End notes, Foot notes, etc. Dynamic endnotes (by ) The script converts static endnotes to dynamic ones. Footnotes to Endnotes (by ) The script converts static footnotes to dynamic endnotes. Update 7 March: added a return linker function. Footnotes in columns (by ) More than a script, it's a series of scripts and a quick tutorial that help you place and organize footnotes into columns.

Dynamic Sidenotes (by ) This one is also a series of scripts and a quick tutorial that help with creating sidenotes (also numbered). Variables, References, and Hyperlinks 48. Show/set text variables (by ) The script creates a menu that lists all the variables used in a document, and allows you to change their value (all in one place).

Insert a Variable (by ) The script creates a dialog that makes placing text variables easier. Quick Reference (by ) The script simplifies the creation of quick references both with and without anchors. Make hyperlinks from URL (by ) The script creates hyperlinks from the URLs in the text. It also adds temporary colors to indicate if the hyperlink creation failed or was successful. Hyperlink list viewer (by ) This script gives you a panel that lists all the hyperlinks present in the document. Create Text Anchors (by ) The script creates text anchors from the text. You use a Character Style to indicate where each anchor should be, and the script does all the rest.

It's really addicting especially if you're a gear head. Surprise anyone still plays this I use to play this a while back when Builders Edge was still around. General Discussion.

Remove all the hyperlinks (by Harbs) The script removes all the hyperlinks present in a document. Add bookmarks from a paragraph style This script helps you to apply bookmarks to a particular paragraph style from an interface. Add bookmarks from a character style This script helps you to apply bookmarks to a particular characters style from an interface. Sort Paragraphs alphabetically (shipped with InDesign) The script SortParagraphs sorts the paragraphs in the selection in alphabetical order. Sort Paragraphs alphabetically – light version language-aware (by ) This script sorts the paragraphs in the selection in alphabetical order. Unlike the SortParagraph above, this one takes account of the text language. It can't deal with formatted lists (unless the formatting was applied by nested GREP styles).

Sort Paragraphs alphabetically – full version language-aware (by ) An evolution of the script above. It's configurable and can deal with every kind of sorting (except for text in tables).

Table Sort (by ) This script lets you sort text inside tables. Index from word list (by ) From a word list, the script runs on all the opened documents and creates an index. It's great for author, language, citation indexes and similar indexes. Topics and page references from character styles (by ) The script creates topics for and page references to all text formatted with certain character styles. Page references from imported topics (by ) The script imports topics and references from another document (InDesign by default imports only the topics, not the references). Building an Index Using Character Styles or External Word List (by ) The script builds an Index using character styles or an external word list.

Use it to automatically build subject, language, or author indexes. Clean Up Index Topics (by ) This script cleans up topic names in the Index panel so that you don’t have to clean up text in the generated story every time you regenerate the index. Find & Replace 66.

FindChangeByList (shipped with InDesign) The script performs a series of common text find/change operations by reading a tab-delimited text file. Check the script below to see how to create the txt file automatically. Find/Change within InDesign Paragraph Styles (by ) - $49 The script allows you to do Find/Change properties on paragraph styles.

Record Find Change (by Martin Fischer) The script helps you with creating the FindChangeList.txt file you need to use the script FindChangeByList.jsx shipped with InDesign. Find change by queries (by ) The script lets you save and run a series of find-change operations.

Multi-Find/Change (by Martinho da Gloria) This is actually an extension – not a script – but it should be mentioned here anyway. It gives you a very useful interface from which you can create and run a series of find-change operations. Identifies Word Stacks (by ) The script applies a character style to any word stack.

The Character Style has a thick red underline to help you spot the word stacks. Import/Export/File Conversion 72. Copy layer (by ) The script copies an entire layer from a document to another. Batch convert/export documents (by ) The script batch converts from indd, indt, inx, idml, pmd, QuarkExpress file format to indd, indt, PDF, PDF (Interactive), eps, rtf, html, xml, jpg, png, swf, and package. It can also be used to export InDesign documents to PDF as separate pages, and change the InDesign version of many files.

Last but not least, you can use it to run a specified script against all documents in a folder. Update 7 March 2017: now the script batch converts also InDesign books to PDF. Page Export and layer combinations (by Scott Zanelli) The script offers a number of options for exporting your files to PDF, eps or jpg. There is also an option that lets you create a number of different PDFs from different layer combinations (helpful with documents with many language layers).

Export book documents individually (by ) The script exports all documents in a book to separate PDFs (also page by page, or section by section). Merge indd files into one (by Simon Wiscombe) The script creates a single InDesign document from several indd files. Place a PDF Pages into InDesign (by Scott Zanelli) The script automatically imports pages from a PDF (or another indd file) into an InDesign document. It comes with several options like positioning, scaling, rotating etc. Migrate GREP Styles (by Rick Gordon) The script allows you to migrate a GREP style from a paragraph style in one document to another paragraph style in a different document. What the GREP!? (by Theunis de Jong and Marc Autret) This script helps you in analyzing and understanding any GREP expression.

It's a script you should have if you ever run GREPs. GREP query manager (by ) This script creates a panel that displays an overview of all the GREPs used in the current user's folder, shows each query's name, finds expression, and changes expression. GREP editor (by ) This script creates a GREP editor.

If you ever tried to type a GREP into the InDesign Find/Change box, you’ll know why this script has to exist. Run several queries one after the other (by ) In practice, it is often faster to formulate several simple GREPs and execute them one after the other, than to work on a complex query for a long time. This script allows you to run several queries, one after the other. Build OpenType Fonts from within InDesign (by Theunis de Jong) The script allows you to create your Fonts directly within InDesign. Add your logo and any pictogram and use them into your documents. Font Reporter (by Marijan Tompa - tomaxxi) This script creates a report of the Fonts used in a single document or many documents.

The report can also be divided by each document. List font properties (by ) Based on what you choose, the script creates a box that lists all the properties of the text next to each style range, paragraph, story, or insertion point (Here the in German). Relink documents in book (by ) Given a folder, with a book open, the script re-links only missing files in the book. Book from a folder (by ) The script creates a book from InDesign documents in a selected folder. The book will have the same name as the folder. InDesign Repair for Windows (by Mikhail Kondakov) This is actually a Win application – not a script – but it's so helpful that I must mention it here. You can use this Win app to repair corrupt InDesign files in some scenarios (Here the in Russian).

InDesign Repair for Mac (by Stellar Phoenix) - 89€ You can use this script to repair corrupt InDesign files (for Mac only). Create hard covers updated These are two scripts that allow you to create a precise book jacket starting from the dimensions of your document. One is a free script by, the other is by and it costs $19.99. Check yourself which one you prefer.

By Marc Autrer by Dan Rodney 91. EAN13/ISBN barcode directly within Indesign (by ) - €39 The script creates a vector image of your barcode directly into the document. You can then export the images using one of the scripts described in the of this post. Import a HTML page (by ) update This script is intended to provide the main text and images on any given web page, and import those into InDesign. The text comes in with same paragraph and character styles ready for use in your publication. Delete empty Text Frames (by ) This simple script deletes all the text-frames which are empty.

To Redokun's users: sometimes when translating an InDesign file with Redokun, you skip some of the paragraphs which are not necessary in the target language. By doing so, the translated file can contain empty text-frames that might no longer be necessary. This script will come to the rescue. Setting InDesign Preferences (by ) Modify and use this script to set your preferences in InDesign. The script comes of help when you update InDesign, or use another computer.

It should be run with a document open. Zoom to width (by ) The script zooms to the width of the currently selected text-frame or object. Very helpful with a keyboard shortcut assigned to the script. Speech balloons (by ) This script automatically creates speech balloons. Great for those who work with comics.