Insight Increase Your InDesign Productivity with Scripting By John Cruise Dateline: February 22, 2006 Version: Adobe InDesign CS More Insight articles
Mention the word “scripting” to a designer and the response is likely to be, “I’m an artist, not a programmer.” Fortunately, you don’t need to write scripts to use scripts, which you can think of as macros on steroids for automating repetitive and tedious tasks.
	Getting Started The easiest way to get started with scripts is to try the scripts included with InDesign. You’ll find them in the Scripting folder within the Adobe Technical Info folder on the InDesign CS CD (or on the Resources and Extras CD if you own the Creative Suite). Mac users can use the AppleScript or JavaScript files; Windows users can use Visual Basic Script or JavaScript files. Make the scripts available to InDesign by placing the scripts in the Scripts folder, which is in the Presets folder of InDesign. (Note: Make sure to shut down and restart InDesign anytime you install a script.)
	Running Scripts After you install the scripts, you’ll find them displayed in the Scripts palette (Window > Scripting > Scripts). To run a script, double-click it in the palette. To see what a simple script can do, click within a paragraph and then double-click on the TabUtilities script in the Scripts palette. The dialog box displays four options for setting a tab stop and a fi eld (Tab Leader) for specifying a fill character. Although the features in the TabUtilities script are available elsewhere in InDesign, it’s possible for a script to add unique features that aren’t otherwise available. Pretty powerful stuff.
	Downloading Free Scripts Another way to begin dabbling with scripts is to download some from the Adobe Web site. The Adobe Studio Exchange has InDesign scripts, with more than 100 free scripts available. For example, there’s a free FontBook script (in JavaScript) by Jonas Ranneby for both Mac and Windows that allows users to print a font book that generates seven formatted lines in different type sizes for all active or individual fonts in InDesign. Cool, useful, and you can’t beat the price!
	Writing Scripts If you’re the adventurous type and have a few minutes to spare, you should try writing a script from scratch. Be forewarned: It’s easy to get hooked on scripting. Try a really easy one by first opening a text editor, and enter the text below. Make sure you add a return character after each line. In AppleScript: try tell application “InDesign CS” set mydocument to make document end tell end try In Visual Basic: Set myInDesign = Create Object (“InDesign.Application.CS”) Set my Document = myInDesign.Document.Add Save the file as NewDoc, then add the file extension .as if you’re using a Mac, or .scpt if you’re on Windows. Save to the Scripts folder of InDesign in the Applications folder (InDesign folder > Presets > Scripts). Launch InDesign, open the Scripts palette (Window > Scripting > Scripts) and double-click on the NewDoc script.
	Scripting References If you’d like to get more familiar with scripting terms and script writing, check out the built-in dictionaries in your operating system. If using a Mac, open Apple Scripts > Script Editor > Open Dictionary, select Adobe InDesign CS from the applications (or choose Browse and select the In-Design application itself), and you’ll see an InDesign dictionary of scripting terms! If using Windows, open Visual Basics > Project > References > Adobe InDesign Type Library > View > Object Browser > InDesign, and Visual Basic gives you a definition to any selected object or command.

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John Cruise is a Denver-based trainer, writer and co-author of books about QuarkXPress and InDesign.