Smart Export All to InCopy Scripts

Anne-Marie Concepcion

7

The problem: InCopy users can’t edit any text in an InDesign layout until the designer has explicitly selected the text frames the editors need to work on and exported them to InCopy format. But InDesign’s “Export All Stories to InCopy” (seems like a logical choice, no?) exports every text frame on the master pages as well as the document pages to InCopy format. Which means that every folio, every header, every footer, etc. becomes an entry in the Assignments palette. And editors sometimes inadvertently edit master page text frames in InCopy. Not good.

So at the start of every project, designers have to manually export the frames (Export Selection to InCopy) they do want, one spread at a time. Oy!

Rick Johnson, a full-time illustrator and part-time AppleScript guru at Kalmbach Publishing in Wisconsin, has written a couple of in-house AppleScripts (links at the end) for the company’s designers that work around this problem. Rick and I are likethis, see, (Kalmbach is a training client of mine) so after a little of my arm-twisting and sweet-talking, and after getting permission from his employer, he has tweaked the scripts for general use and allowed us to post them on our site for downloading. Thank you, Rick and Kalmbach! Live long and prosper!

Before I describe the scripts, a couple notes of caution: First, these are AppleScripts (for InDesign CS2), so they’re Mac-only. Second, Rick is not a full-time AppleScript developer who can provide tech support for these. He’s got a full-time normal job! (If you’ve seen Kalmbach’s Model Railroader magazine, those lovely, intricate track diagrams and train renderings are his. He’s even written some Illustrator plug-ins to help create these.)

So if the scripts aren’t working right or you need something customized about them, you’re on your own. You could try posting a comment here with your question to see if a kind-hearted AppleScripter responds, but you’ll probably get a faster response if you post your question to the scripting forums for InDesign or InCopy on Adobe’s web site, where all the kind-hearted scripting geniuses hang out.

What the Scripts Do

The two Export All to InCopy scripts we’ve linked to below are essentially the same – I’ll explain their minor difference in a minute. They don’t come with ReadMe’s (just a lengthy tool tip) so read on!

In plain English, you tell the script which frames it shouldn’t touch – such as the ones on the master pages – and the script exports all the other text frames in the layout – every spread -in one operation. You prevent frames from being included in the ride by selecting them and giving them a Script Label of “Folio” or “no export.” Just type either phrase right into the Script Label palette while a frame(s) is selected. (David and I talked about the Script Label palette in Podcast #21.) It’s a lot faster to select and label a few master page text frames to exclude and then run the script to export the rest, than it is to do the manual export dance described above!

If you add more frames later on and want to export those too, running the same script exports just those new frames to InCopy format. Neither script exports image frames; you’ll have to do that manually or tweak the script.

Both scripts put all the InCopy story files into a “stories” folder at the same level as the .indd (InDesign layout) file, though it’s easy for even a non-scripter to edit the script to change the name of the folder or tell it to save the folder one or two levels “up” from the layout file. It names each InCopy file uniquely (layout name followed by the internal frame ID number) so you don’t have to worry about overwriting.

The difference: The only difference between the two scripts is what format they save the InCopy story in. Most CS2 users will want the stories exported as InCopy CS2 Documents (.incx), especially if their stories contain uniquely CS2 things like anchored objects or footnotes. They should use the “export stories to incx.scpt” script.

However, some CS2 users prefer to export their stories in the older InCopy CS Story format (.incd), since they’ve had file corruption problems with the .incx format and their InCopy CS2-using editors can still edit the older .incd files from within the CS2 layout. They lose the ability to retain footnotes in the stories and have trouble with some other CS2 text features, but they’ve tested it and it’s best for their workflow. So if you’re in that camp, you should use the “export stories to incd.scpt” script.

If you’re not sure how to install or run a script, it’s easy! Here’s our how-to.

Rick Johnson’s Export All to InCopy scripts:
Export_to_ICCS2.zip (contains the export stories to incx.scpt)
Export_to_ICCS1.zip (contains the export stories to incd.scpt)