Illustrator script failing to select characters

AppleScript
#1

This likely sounds vague. I have a script that opens existing .ai files and then makes several changes to the document across multiple layers. It last was executed in 2021 on the latest Adobe CC Illustrator version. I’m now looking at some older files that need updating and we’re running Illustrator 28.x and the following function is failing on the line set startFontUsed to

I have a function that handles swapping the fonts used for all the text in the document. Previously it was handled with this

tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
	tell document 1
		set fontNameSwapList to {{"Helvetica", "SFProText-Regular"}, {"Helvetica-Bold", "SFProText-Bold"}}    		
		repeat with i from 1 to count of fontNameSwapList
			set startFont to (item 1 of item i of fontNameSwapList)
			set endFont to (item 2 of item i of fontNameSwapList)
			
			set startFontUsed to (every character of every story whose properties contains {text font:text font (startFont)})
			if startFontUsed ≠ {} then
				set text font of (every character of every story whose properties contains {text font:text font (startFont)}) to text font (endFont) of application "Adobe Illustrator"
			end if    			
		end repeat
	end tell
end tell

Raw source:
get every «class cha » of every «class cSTO» of «class docu» 1 whose «property pALL» contains {«class cTXf»:«class cTXf» “Helvetica”}
Error: Internal error (1200)

Maybe the object model changed? I feel silly as I cannot even recall how to work backwards to find a solution. I did try an earlier version of Illustrator from 2023 and that’s also showing the same error.

Thoughts?

#2

It’s a terminology clash between font and text font.

Try this:

tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
	activate
	
	tell document 1 to set theChars to (a reference to (characters of stories whose name of (text font of it) = "Helvetica"))
	if theChars ≠ {} then set text font of theChars to text font "SFProText-Regular"
	
	tell document 1 to set theChars to (a reference to (characters of stories whose name of (text font of it) = "Helvetica-Bold"))
	if theChars ≠ {} then set text font of theChars to text font "SFProText-Bold"
	
end tell
#3

Thank you for the reply. I’ll try working out the replacement in my script and see how this goes. When the entire function finally skips and replaces as expected I’ll post back.

#4

The if statement was executing even when theChars was {} and triggering an error on applying the new font. I’m not sure why I couldn’t figure it out.

To get around this, I used the Adobe provided “Analyze Documents.scpt” to return a list of fonts used in the document (function AnalyzeDocumentFonts) and then I hand that off to a function that makes a new list from a larger master list of possible replacements. The final comparison list – for any given file is a list of start/end pairs and is reset based on the new document.

Not ideal, but this does work even if it is wasting time.

set fontNameSwapList to my createSwapData()
repeat with i from 1 to count of fontNameSwapList
	set startFont to (item 1 of item i of fontNameSwapList)
	set endFont to (item 2 of item i of fontNameSwapList)			
	tell document 1 to set theChars to (a reference to (characters of stories whose name of (text font of it) = startFont))
	set text font of theChars to (text font endFont)			
end repeat