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• • October 13, 2011 at 11:55 am #60751
    Glenn Kramer

    Member

    Hi InDesign users, is there a way that I can automatically change the paragraph style of the next paragraph using Find or GREP? For example: I want to search for all the H2s, then have the paragraph style “No Indent Body” be applied to the paragraph after that. There should be an easy way to do that, but I haven't figured it out. Thank you!

  • October 13, 2011 at 2:51 pm #60752
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Can't be done, it needs a script.

  • October 13, 2011 at 2:54 pm #60753
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    .. whacked this out in 30 seconds:

    app.findTextPreferences = null;
    app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = “H2”;
    var myResults = app.activeDocument.findText();
    for (i=0; i<myResults.length; i++)
    myResults[i].parentStory.paragraphs.nextItem(myResults[i].paragraphs[0]).appliedParagraphStyle = “No Indent Body”;

    • April 30, 2019 at 11:18 am #116293
      Robert Kern

      Member

      Hi Theunis,

      I tried your script but it kicked out the following error:

      Error Number 8:
      Error String: Syntax error
      …
      Line 5:
      Source: app.findTestPreferences.appliedParagraphStyl,e = “H2″;
      Offending Text: ”

      I’m a newbie to scripting, users not a writer, but it seemed simple enough to modify our script to the tags we use (H1, H2, H3, and Body1).
      Any thoughts on how to adjust the script, below, to fix the problem is greatly appreciated!

      app.findTextPreferences = null;
      app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = “H2”;
      var myResults = app.activeDocument.findText();
      for (i=0; i<myResults.length; i++)
      myResults[i].parentStory.paragraphs.nextItem(myResults[i].paragraphs[0]).appliedParagraphStyle = “Body1”;

    • May 1, 2019 at 3:30 am #116306
      Theunis De Jong

      Member

      The prettifying software of this forum automatically changed straight single and double quotes to “correct” curly opening and closing. And JavaScript cannot handle that! There is a minimal hint to this if you copied the code into Adobe’s own ExtendScript Toolkit Editor, or another code editor that does syntax-coloring: you can see text strings get a different color when you use the ‘correct’ type of quotes.

      Trying again below; if it doesn’t work, delete the quotes one by one and replace them with *correct* correct straight ones.

      app.findTextPreferences = null;
      app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = "H2";
      var myResults = app.activeDocument.findText();
      for (i=0; i<myResults.length; i++)
      	myResults[i].parentStory.paragraphs.nextItem(myResults[i].paragraphs[0]).appliedParagraphStyle = "No Indent Body"; 
      

  • October 14, 2011 at 4:22 am #60758
    Eugene Tyson

    Member

    It can be done in a 3 step Find/Change though (I know the brilliant Jongware has already made a script)

    1.

    Find GREP

    Find What:

    Leave Blank

    Change to:

    $0~

    (the ~ can be any character you're sure is not used in the document)

    Find Format:

    Heading 2

    Change Format:

    Leave blank

    That will add an “~” (or any character you choose) to the end of all Heading 2 headers

    2.

    Find GREP

    (?<=~r).+

    Change format:

    Choose the indent or formatting you require

    3.

    Find GREP

    Find What:

    ~

    Change to:

    Leave blank

    (clear change and find formats)

  • October 14, 2011 at 5:29 am #60760
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    Ah, how ingenious mr. Bunt.

    Actually, I may have used your method before I knew how to script and thus had to use my brains!

  • October 14, 2011 at 5:44 am #60761
    Eugene Tyson

    Member

    I'm sure your way is a lot better there Jongware.

    The problem with my method is that you'd have to do this for new paragraphs being inserted or large amounts of paragraphs swapping position or some other sort of weird editing.

    A one step solution is better than 3.

    So if there was a large amount of editing, would your script change the other paragraphs too?

  • October 14, 2011 at 6:06 am #60762
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    I presume you mean you might move “1st paragraph after a heading” and “any next paragraphs” around, and there should always be a “don't indent” style after any sort of heading (*) and “indent” after any “don't indent” OR “indent” style.

    I bet Framemaker does this out-of-the-box but in InDesign you'd have to run a script after every major edit.

    (*) Typically, one would never indent a plain text paragraph after a heading or some white space, such as at the end of a list.

  • October 14, 2011 at 6:24 am #60763
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    … Here is a script that does just that. Warning: it may change more than you want, and it's hard to see what it changed! Uncomment the fill-with-color lines if you need to know where the changes occurred (and run on a copy).

    indentStyle = “Body-Indent”;
    noIndentStyle = “Body-No Indent”;

    if (app.documents.length > 0 && app.selection.length == 1 && app.selection[0].hasOwnProperty(“baseline”))
    {
    story = app.selection[0].parentStory.paragraphs;
    lastStyle = null;
    for (i=0; i<story.length; i++)
    {
    // Do we need to change?
    if (story[i].appliedParagraphStyle.name == indentStyle ||
    story[i].appliedParagraphStyle.name == noIndentStyle)
    {
    // Do we want an indent?
    if ((lastStyle == indentStyle || lastStyle == noIndentStyle))
    {
    lastStyle = indentStyle;
    if (story[i].appliedParagraphStyle.name == noIndentStyle)
    {
    story[i].appliedParagraphStyle = indentStyle;
    // story[i].fillColor = “Red”;
    }
    } else if (!(lastStyle == indentStyle || lastStyle == noIndentStyle))
    {
    lastStyle = noIndentStyle;
    if (story[i].appliedParagraphStyle.name == indentStyle)
    {
    lastStyle = story[i].appliedParagraphStyle = noIndentStyle;
    // story[i].fillColor = “Green”;
    }
    }
    } else
    {
    lastStyle = null;
    }
    }
    }

  • October 14, 2011 at 6:37 am #60764
    Eugene Tyson

    Member

    Cool

  • October 14, 2011 at 9:07 am #60768
    Glenn Kramer

    Member

    Thank you Jongware and Eugene! You are both brilliant. I couldn't figure out how to do this. I'll apply these techniques on the very next publication after I import the Word document text.

  • October 14, 2011 at 7:18 pm #60771
    Amy Gilbert

    Participant

    This is great. Thank you!

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