Free scripts for InDesign or your XML workflow

BatchXSLT for InDesign

Transform any XML to any other XML, HTML or plain text. And, BatchXSLT also can convert images.

A powerful transformer for any XML, XHTML or IDML data (InDesign documents). The transformer can be controlled manually or it can run in fully automated mode. Control BatchXSLT by an external app through JobTickets or even through http like from a Browser.

With InDesign as the master, BatchXSLT works as a slave extractor for InDesign documents to convert document contents to valuable XML – including image conversion. No InDesign tagging needed! Well structured and human readable XML from InDesign documents. Serve media databases, your own website or even WordPress. Yes, BatchXSLT can push articles into a database and it can transfer data via FTP.

Manuals

Two manuals are available as flip page eBooks to read online in your browser (both manuals are extracted from an InDesign document).

Learn how to use this software by reading the User Manual:
↗ BatchXSLT for InDesign User Manual ↗

The Technical Reference Manual for programmers:
↗ BatchXSLT for InDesign Technical Reference Manual ↗

HyperLinkBuilder

HyperLinkBuilder builds clickable active links from any text styled with a given character style.

Turn item numbers in catalogs to links into your web shop, Internet addresses in phone directories to direct web site links, email addresses in address lists to active mail links.

Such links also work in interactive PDFs.

StoryScissors

StoryScissors cuts long text in chained stories or chained classified ads columns into individual text frames.

In automated production processes, ads usually are filled into an InDesign document as a single story placed into many chained text frames. Especially when exporting to XML for web or database applications, it is essential to have each ad or article cut in its own text frame – otherwise, Internet search engines will not be able to deliver relevant search results.

StoryScissors can split up such long threaded ads or articles columns into individual text frames at any given single or even at multiple paragraph styles. Each sliced part stays at his original position and also keeps its formatting.

Hidden Text Detective

Hidden Text Detective shows you the meaning of hidden characters in an InDesign text. Hex and text code viewer for special characters and hidden markers contained in InDesign text frames.

Curious on those cryptic glyphs after having imported text or XML from an external system? Hidden Text Detective shows you what these characters mean, shows their hex code and meaning and helps you debug your imported text in InDesign.

Hidden Text Detective acts like the well known hex editors used by developers to view codes in a file. However, Hidden Text Detective is a viewer only and does not allow to directly edit or change text content in an InDesign document.

setTimeout for InDesign

The setTimeout and clearTimeout functions for InDesign's ExtendScript – here they are!

Missed the setTimeout and clearTimeout functions for InDesign's ExtendScript?

setTimeout and clearTimeout – just like the well known Javascript functions known from Browsers. These functions do not block InDesign or your users like $.sleep does. setTimeout is built on InDesign's idleTasks.

Download the code from our GitHub repository, copy it into your script, read the header (run your script in its own #targetengine) and enjoy the new functions setTimeout and clearTimeout.

Example usage:
Show the user a message in 20 seconds:
setTimeout( function() { alert("Hello friend!"); }, 20000);
or:
Call myFunc in 5 seconds:
setTimeout( function() { myFunc(myparams); }, 5000);

If a script calls itself using setTimeout the setInterval functionality can be obtained.