Comments on: IDCS4 Bug: Text Formatting Lost in Empty Cells and Frames On Export

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:22:37 +0000

I just received this helpful idea from Uwe Laubender: Because you can avoid the problem by using INX, why not force InDesign to use INX instead of IDML! This was discussed in some detail in the comments section of this post. But Uwe offers another script here (his comments are below, with his permission):

Be aware that IDML export is standard for generating snippets and library elements in InDesign CS4. However InDesign CS3 does not know this bug due to INX as the standard export format. Though it is safe to use InDesign CS3 snippets and library elements in InDesign CS4, every time you add an item to an existing library in CS4 adds IDML.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to force InDesign CS4 to use the old INX instead of IDML for snippets and library elements? Of course, but how could we accomplish that?

While browsing through the object model viewer of the ExtendScript Toolkit CS4 I came accross a possible solution, an item called “SnippetExportFormats” that showed a specific option, the “INX_TRADITIONAL_FORMAT”! Wow. I discussed that in our learning group “JavaScript for Beginners”. With the help of Ralf Hobirk and Kai Ruebsamen for testing and especially Gerald Singelmann for showing the right way to implement the option, I can present the following line of JavaScript:

app.snippetExportFormat = SnippetExportFormats.INX_TRADITIONAL_FORMAT;

Save it as plain text with an “jsx” extension. If you choose the ESTK or your normal Scripts folder for starting the script, InDesign will forget about this line every time you restart. To prevent that drag it to your “Startup Scripts” folder (directory) in your “Scripts” folder (directory) and InDesign CS4 will take INX before IDML on default. If there is no “Startup Scripts” folder just make a new one.

By: F vd Geest

F vd Geest — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:46:40 +0000

>Object Style with Paragraph format.

Indeed, perfect for templates like we are talking about here.

By: Jochen F. Uebel

Jochen F. Uebel — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:31:18 +0000

I discovered a third workaround (for text frames): Object Style with Paragraph format.

By: Amit guptA

Amit guptA — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:15:54 +0000

gr8 information!!

Thanks David!!

By: Ralf Hobirk

Ralf Hobirk — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 09:13:11 +0000

It’s not just a problem when sharing documents. For my jobs I need a plenty of small tables which I’m keeping in a library to place them in the documents when needed.

Switching my workflow finally to CS4 about 10 days ago let me discover this bug.

There’s one more workaround than just putting some text in all the cells of a table: Prepare tables and other elements in CS3, put them in a library and open this library in CS4. Works out fine.

Btw, “hilf dir selbst” means “help yourself” and is the biggest prepress forum in the German speaking area.

By: Roland

Roland — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 06:47:59 +0000

Try adding a space after hilf to make it easier to start trying to pronounce it

As for the bug: I don’t share my files, but if I had to, I’d add “header”, “body” and whatnot in the appropriate frames anyway as to make them easier to identify. Then again, if it’s a multi-page document that could end up taking quite a while, so simply sending an INDD file would be what I’d probably end up doing.