205 Managing scripts

- I'm a big fan of using scripts in InDesign. As you can see from one of my very first blog posts, I think it's actually the first blog post on InDesignSecrets.com, January 4, 2006, was all about how to install scripts in InDesign. There are tons of free scripts, a few that charge a little bit of money, but most of them are free, all around the Internet. They're extremely useful. I like to collect them like candy. If I go to a site like this, in-tools.com, this is their list of scripts.

Look at this, I feel like I'm in a candy store. What I want to show you are a few ways that I use as a script fanatic to control all my scripts, to keep track of them, to organize them and find them quickly. My first tip is in InDesign, keep the scripts panel out and about. Add it to your custom workspace. I always add the scripts panel to the bottom of any custom workspace that I create because I'm constantly going in there for scripts. If you have the scripts panel hidden, if it's still sitting here in utilities, chances are you're not even going to think, "I wonder if there's a script that will help me solve this?" Another tip that I have is I like to install scripts at the application level because sometimes I'm having an issue with InDesign and in order for me to test if it's something in my user settings or something in InDesign itself, I need to switch to a different account.

I need to log out of my own account on my Macintosh or Windows and then log into a test account. If the scripts are installed at the application level, the scripts are always there. If they're at the user level, they're only there when you are logged in. That's not that big of a deal whether you installed them in application or user. I just wanted to mention that because mine might look a little different than yours. If you're accustomed to installing them in your user folder. The big thing is that do you notice how I have these very nice folder hierarchies? So the samples are the ones that come with InDesign.

The AppleScript and JavaScript that we know and love so much like Find Change My List. In the other folders I've put the ones that I've downloaded. This makes it real easy for me when somebody says, "What kind of scripts do you use?" I can just jump right to it in the finder. I can right click right on that folder and see here are the scripts that I use. I could select this folder and copy it and zip it and send it to somebody, or I could copy it and paste it into the scripts folder of the new version of InDesign. I've also started to make other folders and I prefix them with a one to force them to the top of the list in the scripts panel.

Because I'm frequently just using scripts just for tables, or especially when I'm working with any ePub project. Now there's no rule saying that you can't create your own folders. You just select the scripts panel folder, where you install all your scripts, and then you'll find the sample folder sitting there, and you just add your own. Now sometimes when you add them, especially in the Macintosh, in fact it might be only in the Macintosh, You'll get this weird little DS store file that comes along for the ride. That's just the resource fork, that's what they call it for the Macintosh and the scripts panel doesn't know what to do with it.

You can easily delete it. I always do, it just bugs me. I just right click on it and it says, delete script file are you sure? I know it's not a script file, so I'll say yes. So knowing where to put them and how to organize them will help you immensely, especially if you're dealing with a lot of scripts. My second big tip is to keep track of where you got these scripts from. When I have a list of scripts like this that I've collected over the years, and keeping moving from older versions of InDesign to new ones, sometimes if I run it, it won't work. And I'll wonder, "I wonder if the developer created a newer version of this script?" I was just looking for that with this batch resave INX to IDML.

If want to go to that developer's site, I could google for the name of the script but sometimes that doesn't help. Sometimes I've renamed if after I've downloaded it or they've renamed it. The best thing to do is to save it with the script. Let me show you how you can do that. I'm going to right click here and choose reveal and finder. So here is the script name. If I go to the file menu and choose get info, there is a comments section. Right now we're in Maverick so the comment section is down here. In older versions of the Mac OS this was the comment section up here.

But luckily they make the trip successfully to their new location if you upgrade your operating system. Now if I want to find out if the developer happened to post a new version, I'll just select this URL, copy to my clipboard, jump over to Chrome and paste it in. Not sure if they did or not but here is that person's website and I don't think I would have ever been able to find that again. I've just started doing this about two years ago, so not all my scripts have the URL. But I've tried to make it a new habit that whenever I download a script or I copy out a script from somebody's form post and convert it into a script in a text editor, that I always then immediately go to the finder, select it, open up, get info and paste in the URL of where I got it from.

This guy, Freeze paragraphs, this is one of the scripts from In-Tools. I've talked with my Windows friends, I'm pretty sure that there is a way to also do this in Windows. But otherwise, that part of this tip might be Mac only. Let's see where I got that guy from. Ah, yes, my friend at in-tools. If you are like me and just can't resist every script that comes your way, do yourself a favor and organize them and attach their source to them in the finder. You'll be really glad that you did.