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• • June 29, 2010 at 10:34 pm #56213
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hello,

    I am trying to sort a data merge document out. Everything is working well, howver I have some cells within tables that are empty (ie have no content except for a blank placeholder and an end of story mark). I need to automatically find those cells and then delete them.

    I sourced a script from Adobe forums to delete all empty cells in a document, but it either crashes Indesign, or does nothing. Here is that script:

    var myDocument = app.activeDocument;

    for(var i=myDocument.textFrames.length-1; i>=0; i–){

    for(var j=myDocument.textFrames[i].tables.length-1; j>=0; j–){

    for(var k=myDocument.textFrames[i].tables[j].rows.length-1; k>=0; k–){

    myContents = 0;

    for(var l=myDocument.textFrames[i].tables[j].rows[k].cells.length-1; l>=0; l–){

    if (myDocument.textFrames[i].tables[j].rows[k].cells[l].contents != “”) myContents++;

    }

    if (myContents == 0) myDocument.textFrames[i].tables[j].rows[k].remove();

    }

    }

    }

    Help??

  • July 1, 2010 at 6:13 am #56227
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Does this make it work?

    if (myDocument.textFrames[i].tables[j].rows[k].cells[l].contents.length > 0)

    The 'contents' property of a cell is not guaranteed to be a string — it can also be a single special character or nothing at all (not even an empty string).

  • July 1, 2010 at 4:48 pm #56238
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hey Jongware,

    Thanks for your response.

    I've got to say I'm getting hooked on this scripting. Before I made this document I have never used it before. Suddenly my script palette is filling up and I can make text-heavy documents in no time at all.

    I updated the script as discussed above. The document didn't crash, but the cells didn't delete either. I did get a spinning beachball for a minute or so, suggesting it was doing something, but no real results I can see.

    Here is a screen shot of the cells:

    

    I can remove the cells with content like “Email: ” by searching for those via the following script. You will notice that the 'empty cell has a placeholder which is an empty Cell from excel. Is there a way I can search for that expression in GREP? I am not sure how to express it in GREP though:

    // JavaScript Document
    app.findGrepPreferences = null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = “Email:s+Z“;
    empties = app.activeDocument.findGrep(true);
    for (i = 0; i < empties.length; i++)
    if (empties[i].parent instanceof Cell)
    empties[i].parent.parentRow.remove();

    Do you know how I can change the expression for the values that appear in the empty cells?

    Thanks in advance, really appreciate your help.

  • July 2, 2010 at 1:21 am #56242
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Oh I see. My suggestion does work, and so did (probably) your own first try. Nothing happened because … the 'empty' cells are not empty!

    If I zoom in on the image, I can see a few tiny blue markers, quite different from the standard '#' end-of-text marker. They are also visible in the “Email” field, so apparently they get found by that GREP expression.

    I suggest using something like “As*Z” — any number of spaces, and hopefully that includes that unknown marker.

  • July 3, 2010 at 7:24 am #56247
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    (Two days later) Eh. That oughta be something like “As*Z” …

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