Using scripts for advanced table sculpting – help needed

Martin Korecký

Tagged: anchor, cell merge, InDesign, merging, Scripting, Tables

This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 7 months ago by Matt Isaac.

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- August 30, 2016 at 7:26 am #87918
  
  Martin Korecký
  Member
  
  Hey guys,
  I would definitely apreciate any help with this issue. Forr better undesrtanding I am attaching an image.
  
  https://s11.postimg.org/a8sadr0oz/screen.png
  
  My problem is, that I have a LOT of tables with 5 columns, a an image anchored in last cell of the first row. Client now wants to delete last two column in every table, but this results in deleting my anchored image also. I would need a script, which will do the following:
  
  1: cancel the cell merging in first row
  2: merge first two cells and then last three cells in first row together
  3: select the last two columns in a table and delete them
  
  this should prevent deleting the anchored image, which is cruicial to me. Problem is that I am no scripter and have no idea how to do this. Doing this manually in 490 tables is quite annoying only by thinking about it. Anyone have an advice? I would be very grateful.
- August 30, 2016 at 2:02 pm #87932
  
  Matt Isaac
  Participant
  
  var doc = app.activeDocument;
  var tables = doc.textFrames.everyItem().tables.everyItem();
  tables.rows[0].unmerge();
  tables.cells[0].merge(tables.cells[1]);
  tables.cells[2].merge(tables.cells[4]);
  tables.columns[4].remove();
  tables.columns[3].remove();
  
  This script does what your steps specify.
- August 30, 2016 at 2:08 pm #87933
  
  Martin Korecký
  Member
  
  Thanks for your help, I will try it asap.
- August 30, 2016 at 2:46 pm #87934
  
  Martin Korecký
  Member
  
  Works like a charm, thank you very much for saving me hours of terrible work! I just made one small mini-tweak, because it merged all first two rows togehter, I think this happens because after the first merge, numbering of the cells is shifted.
  
  my edit of the second merge:
  
  …
  tables.cells[0].merge(tables.cells[1]);
  tables.cells[1].merge(tables.cells[3]);
  …
  
  (or maybe using them in your way, just in oposite order would also help)
  
  Thanks a lot!
- August 31, 2016 at 8:53 am #87946
  
  Matt Isaac
  Participant
  
  Yeah, i didn’t even think about the cells shifting with the merge.
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