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• • December 27, 2019 at 5:27 pm #1219942
    Fons Dams

    Member

    Hi

    I am looking for a script that sets every character in a text out of one of the four fonts it defines and do this randomly.

    Can this (or a variation on this idea) be done with scripting in InDesign?

    Thnx
    Stijn

  • December 27, 2019 at 7:15 pm #14323376
    Brian Pifer

    Participant

    Sure. With the text in question selected:

    var chars = app.selection[0].characters;
    var fonts = [“Font1”, “Font2”, “Font3”, “Font4”];
    for (var i = 0; i < chars.length; i++) {
    var rando = Math.floor(Math.random() * Math.floor(4));
    chars[i].appliedFont = fonts[rando];
    }

  • December 28, 2019 at 3:42 am #14323373
    Fons Dams

    Member

    Thanx Brian!

    I tried the script but got an error:

    JavaScript Error!
    Error Number: 8
    Error String: Syntax error
    Engine: main
    File (path to script)
    Line: 1
    Source: {\rtf1nsinsicpg1252\cocoartf1671\cocoasubrtf600
    Offending Text: \

    Any idea what went wrong?

  • December 28, 2019 at 11:59 pm #14323372
    Brian Pifer

    Participant

    Be sure you copied what I have above into a plain text editor such as Notepad, then save as a .jsx, not a word processing application like Word.

  • December 29, 2019 at 5:31 am #14323371
    Fons Dams

    Member

    Hi Brian
    I did what you suggested, but still the same error :(
    I made a version with exactly the same text (copy/paste) as above and one with the Font1 etc replaced with actual font names installed on my system (Minion Pro.otf etc).
    Thanx for helping me out!!
    Stijn

  • December 29, 2019 at 6:12 am #14323370
    Theunis De Jong

    Member

    You must be using TextEdit on a Mac. It is not possible that the suggested NotePad (the canonical plain text editor on Windows) would have shown that particular error. TextEdit assumes you want to add formatting to a text, and so it saves new files by default in the RTF (“rich text file”) format, but a script needs to be ASCII text only. That’s why it chokes on the very first formatting codes.

    Make sure that you set TextEdit to “Make Plain Text” before saving.

    Or, just use Adobe’s own ExtendScript Toolkit editor. It has the additional advantage that you can see syntax highlighting, so you’ll know it when a string is not properly defined.

    By the way: your font is not named “Minion Pro.otf” – look in your Font menu! Just use the font name. If you want to add a style as well, you can add it after a tab after the font name:

    var fonts = [ "Minion ProRegular", "Minion ProBold" ...

  • December 29, 2019 at 8:48 am #14323366
    Fons Dams

    Member

    RTF it was. TXT it now is and it works! Thanx Theunis
    @ Brian: pure magic that script of yours! Exactly what I need! Thanx again
    S

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