Adobe InDesign & Illustrator Scripts
One of the great things about Adobe® InDesign® and Illustrator®, is their scriptability. We use InDesign and Illustrator scripting as part of many of our custom automation projects.
The time-saving scripts below are ones that we have written for friends or colleagues. They are available here for free, but If you find any of them useful, and would like to encourage us to make more available in the future, consider making a PayPal donation using the button below!
InDesignSecrets/InDesign Magazine Photo Flinger
Premedia Systems Photo Flinger is an Adobe InDesign extension designed to simplify the creation of photo book layouts that involve positioning images and/or text frames in regular positions on the page.
Using Photo Flinger is as easy as selecting the desired layout (i.e., a grid with an equal number of rows and columns, one row with multiple columns, or one column with multiple rows). Then, select an image or text frame, and press one of the buttons to automatically size and position the frame in the selected position on the page. Rinse and repeat…
Photo Flinger is available for both macOS and Windows versions of InDesign CC 2019 and newer.
Download the ID Photo Flinger Extension
CreativePro/PePcon 2018, Scripting Challenge Script: ID Text Unstyler
At the CreativePro 2018 conference in New Orleans, as part of the Scripting Challenge event (formerly called the “People’s Choice Script” event), attendees are asked to submit script ideas to the third-party (non-Adobe employee) developers attending the conference, in hopes that the developers will write the script. The scripts written for the event are made available, for free, to everyone.
A couple of attendees suggested to create a script that removes all assigned paragraph and character styling applied to the text in an InDesign document, but to maintain all text styling as local formatting—in other words, all of the text keeps its formatting (font, bold, italic, etc.), but without having any paragraph or character styles applied. In addition, all existing paragraph and character styles will remain, without any modifications, in the document. ID Text Unstyler is that script!
The ID Text Unstyler script will work on macOS and Windows versions of Adobe InDesign CS3 and newer. Please see our InDesign Script Installation instructions for help installing the script.
Download the ID Text Unstyler Script
PePcon 2014, People’s Choice Script: Empty XML Tag Remover
During the 2014 PePcon Conference in Chicago, a number of InDesign scripting developers participated in developing scripts proposed by conference attendees. Three scripts were voted on to determine which script was to be developed. After the vote was taken the developers decided to code all three! One of the scripts, “Empty XML Tag Remover,” was written by us!
Empty XML Tag Remover is a script for Adobe InDesign CS3 and newer. The script examines all of the XML tags in an InDesign document’s stories. Any “empty” XML tags (tags that have no child nodes) are removed from the document’s XML structure. If the removal of a tag results in a paragraph that contains no text, the paragraph itself is removed by deleting its trailing carriage return.
Download the Empty XML Tag Remover Script
Sandee Cohen’s Sort Tabbed Paragraphs Script
To deal with a question in her popular “InQuestion” column in the October/November, 2011 issue of InDesign Magazine, noted author and trainer, Sandee Cohen asked us to add some functionality to the “Sort Paragraphs” script which ships with InDesign as one of the example scripts. The original script sorts paragraphs based on the first word in the paragraph. Sandee had a need to sort paragraphs based on a particular “field” in a tab-delimited line. For example, rather than “Alan<tab>Smith” sorting BEFORE “Joe<tab>Jones” this script will make it sort AFTER if one specifies the sort to be done on the second “field” or “column.” (“Smith” comes after “Jones,” even though “Alan” comes before “Joe.”) So, we modified the original script to add that functionality. Check it out…
Download the Sort Tabbed Paragraphs Script
The Adobe Illustrator CS5 Wow! Book Scripts
Sharon Steuer and the team of authors and artists that created the recently released Peachpit Press book, “The Adobe Illustrator CS5 WOW! Book,” asked us to write two scripts to demonstrate concepts in two chapters: Rapid Reshaping and Scripting Colors.The Artboard Resizer script resizes all artboards in a document by a specified factor, and the Artwork Colorizer script automatically fills shapes with different colors—very useful for mapmakers, etc.
Download the Wow! Book Scripts
Bay Area InDesign User Group Scripts
Several years ago, we gave a presentation on scripting at a meeting of the Bay Area InDesign User Group. We asked those in attendance for script ideas, and then had them vote on which would be most useful. We took the two ideas with the most votes, and developed them into working scripts which we're making available here. (Scroll to the bottom of the page for download links.)
Shadow-Matic
The suggestion with the most votes was for a script to automate a way around the fact that InDesign does not honor the blending mode of Photoshop layers, sometimes complicating the task of creating shadow effects. This script will create an image “sandwich” with two copies of the same image, one on top of the other. The bottom image is set with a blending mode of “Multiply,” and the other—positioned on top of the first—is set with a blending mode of “Normal.” The two images are then grouped together.The script takes a selected image, and displays a dialog box allowing you to select which layers and/or clipping paths to use for the shadow portion of the image, and which to use for the “normal” image.
Lock/Unlock All Page Items
The suggestion with the second most votes was for a script to quickly lock or unlock all page items. The script displays a dialog in which you select whether to lock or unlock all page items, and whether it should apply that choice to the current spread or the entire document.
InDesign Script Installation
To use any of the InDesign scripts, unzip the downloaded file, and place the resulting .jsx file in the “Scripts Panel” folder which is inside the “Scripts” folder which is inside the Adobe InDesign application folder. This will make the script appear in the Scripts Panel (Window > Automation > Scripts). Find the script you want to run in the “Application” section of the Scripts Panel, and double click it to run it.
Illustrator Script Installation
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