Is this specifically an InDesign issue, or do you experience this in all the programs on your machine. If the latter is true then you should probably ask around on a Microsoft Windows forum.

Skemicle, the ‘and’ operator (‘&&’) is an equality operator, not an assignment operator.

This script should work:

app.doScript(main, ScriptLanguage.JAVASCRIPT, undefined, UndoModes.ENTIRE_SCRIPT, "Subtract Paths");
function main() {
    try{
        var mySelection = app.selection;
        var myPicture = mySelection[0];
        var myPath = mySelection[1];
        var topPicture = myPicture.duplicate();
        var half1 = myPath.subtractPath(myPicture);
        var newPath = half1.duplicate();
        var half2 = newPath.subtractPath(topPicture);
        var myGroup = half1.parent.groups.add ([half1, half2]);
        app.select(myGroup);
        } catch(myError) {
            alert("Make sure you selected 2 path items")
            }
        }

Please send me an email to designerjoe[at]outlook.com with a detailed explanation of the problem and how the script should fix it, and I’ll see what I can do.

Ari

I hope one of the moderators cleans up the spam.

Re: your question. I did not watch the lynda.com movie, but from your description I assume they used the ‘Gridify’ trick.

Check out these articles:

https://creativepro.com/quickly-place-images-indesign-document.php

https://creativepro.com/tip-week-gridify-magic.php

You’re right.

In my experience, placing Word files and the like into InDesign messes up the formatting. To have better control it’s a good idea to select ‘Show Import Options’ when placing the file, and in the dialog box that pops up select any options that you need as well as optional style-mapping.

Though, even with this, things could still get messed up. There a lot of excellent articles and posts on the site that deal with issue. Just do a search.

P.S. Why do you place the text in the master?…

Or even better. From the page (not the master, the regular page) Shift-click any item from the master and only that item will be overridden.

You don’t have to convert the text to outlines. See these articles:

https://creativepro.com/creating-see-through-text.php

https://creativepro.com/turn-any-object-into-a-transparency-mask.php