Managing InDesign Scripts

Using scripts in InDesign is one of the best ways to automate processes and speed up results. Like extensions and plug-ins, scripts make life in InDesign easier by doing much of the heavy lifting when it comes to automation. For all the amazing things they can do, many people still haven’t made room for them in their workflows. That’s probably because it can be a bit of a mystery as to how to manage them, once you’ve located the perfect gems.

Once you’ve found a script that suits your needs (if you need some ideas check out the articles here or here), you’ll need to actually download it. Be aware that there are a few flavors of scripts out there.

  • Applescript (.applescript): This format is for—as you might have guessed—Macs only.
  • VBScript (.vbs): This format works in Windows environments.
  • JavaScript (.js or .jsx): This format is cross-platform, and the format you’ll encounter most often.

Most of the time, downloading a script is a straightforward process: click, download, install. However, sometimes when you click on a .jsx file, you’re instead presented with a screen full of messy, gibberish-looking text. A few things to try if you don’t get the expected results on the first try:

  • Right-click or control-click on the .jsx file and choose the download file option, instead of just clicking the file.
  • If you are looking at a screenful text, select the text, copy it, paste it into your favorite text editor (like Text Edit or Notepad), convert to plain text, then just save the file with a .jsx extension (assuming it’s a JavaScript file, of course).
  • Occasionally, clicking on a script will download a file that, although the filename ends in .jsx, still doesn’t work. The culprit is usually that the file also has the extension .txt just before the .jsx extension. Simply rename the file to remove the .txt portion of the name.
Clicking on a script may display the script's text onscreen, instead of downloading the script itself.

Clicking on a script may display the script’s text onscreen, instead of downloading the script itself.

Now that you’ve got your file, what to do with it? You have a few options, depending on your working environment:

  • Make the script available to all users you have set up on your machine. This is the option I use, because I have my main user, a guest user, and a presentation user. All of these users have access to InDesign, and I like to make sure I—or a guest user—will have the same scripts available when using the program. Navigate to where your InDesign application lives (most likely the Applications folder on a Mac or the Program Files folder on a PC), then open the Scripts folder. Inside that folder is a folder called Scripts Panel; drop the script into that folder. Back in InDesign itself, the script will now appear immediately in the Application folder inside the Scripts panel.
  • Make the script available to specific users only. If you only want specific users to have access to a script, you’ll need to move it into their user’s folder. You’ll have to do this for each user you are allowing access. Drop the script in the appropriate folder:
    Mac: Users/[username]/Library/Preferences/Adobe InDesign/[version]/[language]/Scripts/Scripts Panel
    Windows XP: Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\[version]\[language]\Scripts\Scripts Panel
    Windows Vista and Windows 7: Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\[version]\[language]\Scripts\Scripts Panel
    The scripts you place in these folders will appear in the User folder from within the Scripts panel in the InDesign application.
  • If you can’t remember the file paths above, you can also get right to where the scripts live from the Scripts panel in InDesign itself. Simply right-click or control-click on a script in the panel, then choose Reveal in Finder/Explorer. Just keep that folder open to easily drop new scripts into.

WhereScriptsLive
Once you’ve put the scripts in the appropriate folder, you might want to organize your collection further. You can do that from the Scripts Panel folder in the Finder or Explorer. Create additional folders as needed to keep, say, your fun scripts separated from your GREP scripts, or your text scripts apart from your objects and graphics scripts. I often use a folder called “testing” when I’m evaluating new scripts. By having them in this separate folder, I can easily locate them to discard them if they don’t work out for me. As an added bonus, you already have a folder called “Samples” which contains all the scripts that ship with InDesign.
ScriptsPanel

Erica Gamet has been involved in the graphics industry for over 35 years. She is a speaker, writer, trainer, and content creator focusing on Adobe InDesign, Apple Keynote, and varied production topics. She is a regular presenter at CreativePro Week, regular contributor to CreativePro Magazine, and has spoken at Canada’s ebookcraft, Adobe MAX, and Making Design in Oslo, Norway. Find Erica online at the CreativePro YouTube channel, CreativeLive.com and through her own YouTube channel. When she isn’t at her computer she’s probably daydreaming about travel or living in a Nordic noir landscape.

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