InDesign Move table from one document to another

AppleScript
#1

I am trying to script copying the styled contents of cells from a table in one inDesign document to a similar table in a second inDesign document.

Does anyone have experience with this?

If I just use “sent contents to” I just get plain text

If I try “duplicate” I get weird text all over the destination document.

Copy / paste commands will work once, then just paste the same data over and over.

Any suggestions?

→ Script Debugger 7.0.13 (7A125)
→ Mac OS 10.11.6 (15G22010)
→ InDesign CS6 (8.1)

#2

hi
try something like this

tell application “Adobe InDesign 2020”
set table1 to table 1 of story 1 of document 1
set table2 to table 1 of story 1 of document 2
–assuming the destination cell is empty
duplicate text of cell 1 of table1 to after last insertion point of cell 1 of table2
end tell

#3

The easy way is to use the copy command.
But you have to set the clipboard behavior at first.

Try this:

 
tell application id "InDn"
	activate
	
	if class of selection is not in {cell, column, table} then return beep
	
	tell clipboard preferences to set prefer styled text when pasting to true
	
	set userButton to button returned of (display dialog "Do you want to copy or paste the table cells?" buttons {"Cancel", "Copy", "Paste"} default button 2 cancel button 1)
	
	if userButton = "Copy" then copy
	if userButton = "Paste" then paste
	
end tell
#4

Thanks Marco and Jonas, I’ll give both a try and let you know how it goes!

#5

Well, this is odd. I was preparing to try those two suggestions, and pasted them both in to a new Script Debugger document.

I had to make a few tweaks (including changing a “-” to “–”) so I could see if they would compile.

The compile failed on the word “the” in the commented line.

I pasted the same script into Script Editor and got the same error.

I removed the commented line and it compiled.

What is happening here?


tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"
	activate
	
	if class of selection is not in {cell, column, table} then return beep
	
	tell clipboard preferences to set prefer styled text when pasting to true
	
	 copy
 paste
	
end tell
 
 tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"

set table1 to table 1 of story 1 of document 1
set table2 to table 1 of story 1 of document 2

–- assuming the destination cell is empty

duplicate text of cell 1 of table1 to after last insertion point of cell 1 of table 2

end tell

→ Script Debugger 7.0.13 (7A125)
→ Mac OS 10.11.6 (15G22010)
→ InDesign CS6 (8.1)

#6

Never mind… the “-” was actually a dash “–” in the quoted script. So of course it wouldn’t see it as a comment.

I must say that in both SD and SE they look identical.

:slight_smile:

#7

You definitely put me on the right path, thanks! Here’s what I came up with (minus so very specific commands)

use AppleScript version "2.4" -- Yosemite (10.10) or later
use scripting additions
--Duplicate a table from one document to an empty table in a second document.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS6"
   set allSourceRows to every row of sourceTable
   repeat with sourceRow in allSourceRows
      set sourceCells to every cell of sourceRow
      set thisRowsCells to {}         
         repeat with thisCell in sourceCells
            set cellLabel to label of thisCell
            set fillColor to name of fill color of thisCell
            set destinationCell to (cell 1 of tableDest whose label is cellLabel)
            set the end of thisRowsCells to destinationCell
            set contents of destinationCell to ""
            duplicate text of thisCell to after last insertion point of destinationCell
            set fill color of destinationCell to fillColor
      end repeat
   end repeat
end tell