Publication Production using PageMaker  

The scripts available to purchasers of Publication Production using PageMaker are listed below. New scripts and templates will be listed here as they are added, and we welcome submissions from readers.

These scripts can only be accessed using the username and password which is on a label on the inside back cover of the book.

There are a selection of scripts (including a few which are also listed here) on the free information pages of our web site and they can be used by anyone with no restrictions. Please refer people to those as if they are persuaded to buy our books, we'll be able to keep adding scripts and templates here.

Scripts

~view120 (Sets the view of file to 120%): A one-line file to reset the view to one which you can't get easily. An example of making four clicks into one. The tilde puts the script at the top of the list in the script palette.

AllPagesFit (Sets view of all pages to fit in window): You can easily change this script to specify a different view percentage

NoStyle (Make all text "No Style"): By making all text "no style" the contents of a file can be transferred to another file without being affected by styles in that file. It achieves this by the simple process of removing all styles from the styles palette.

ColBreak (Column Breaker): An adaptation of a script which used to come with PageMaker. It divides the area over which a text block has been stretched into the required number of columns. The gutter between the columns is taken from the first gutter on the page.

OddMeasure (Creates frames for a bastard measure story): A much simpler version of the above script, creating frames to place a story in.

CutOff2 (Cut Off by Width): This provides a cut-off rule of a specified width rather than by the paragraph rules setting requirement of sepcifying the indent.

AdBoxes (Draw advert boxes on pages): From a comma separated text file, this script draws in boxes of the required size on the correct page and inserts the ad size and name of the advertiser in the box. Boxes still have to be dragged into position on the page by hand.

OpenFiles (List of open PM files): Presents a list of the files which are open within PageMaker and allows one to be selected and brought to the front. Possibly easier than tabbing through files.

SeparatePages (Separates a file into individual pages files) Separates the pages from a file into individual files with a common stub name. Useful if your printer seeks one page per file.

FirstBold (First word of a paragraph in bold): A simple script which makes the first word bold for a couple of paragraphs and then waits to be run again.

HardDrop (Hard black drop shadow to a heading): Set a heading in colored text and this will create a hard drop shadow behind it, offset by two points.

GrayDrop (Gray drop shadow to a heading): Same as above but with the shadow in gray.

Feet (Turns curly quotes setting to straight): Useful for when you want feet and inch marks. Better than the one in the book because it gets your default settings first.

Feet-off (Turns curly quotes back on): Reverses the effect of the above.

DropBox (Drop shadow behind a box): Draw a box and give it a paper or colored fill. This will add a drop shadow to it.

FirstCap (Puts first par's first word in Caps): Sets the style of the paragraph your cursor is in to "First par" and puts first word in caps.

IndentStory (Indents story 6pts each side): Removes para indent from first paragraph of a story, and indents the whole lot by 6pts each side.

IndentUnindent (A toggle to indent or unindent a story):This script compares the actual settings to the style's settings.

BoxStory (places a selected single text block story in a box): An example script which you may need to edit to suit your preferences. It requires styles named "Headline", "Intro" and "Body text"

OneAdBox (Draws a box of a certain size): The 10cm x 17 pica size is hard coded in. Change it to suit your needs. A dialog asks for the advertisers name to go in the box.

AnyAdBox (Draws ad box of any size): The above script with a dialog added to get the advertiser's name and the ad size.

NextText (Adds another text block next to an existing one): Place part of a longer story in a text block. This script will create another text block alongside of the same size and using some or all of the unplaced text. Probably not so useful on its own but like many of these it could be useful in a longer script.

HeadFit (Increases a one line text block to fit): This increases the size of a one-lineheading in standard jumps until it is the largest which will fit. The headline must be in a single line and in a text block on its own.

BetterBullet (A better size and position of bullet): A one line script which reduces the size of a Dingbats bullet and moves to a better visual position.

BoxedHead (Puts a heading into a shaded box): This script creates a shaded box and puts whatever text you want into it in the style named "Box Head" -- It will need to be adapted to suit the size and type you -- choose for that style.

ChangeDate (Changes one dateline to another): This was written to change the folio dates on a template.

TextWidthAndAlter (Sets text width of page): This sets the text width of the page, instead of having to set the margins. Then alters existing page.

PageWidth (Sets text width of page): Simpler version of above. Does not alter existing page to fit.

StoryStyle (Sets different styles in a story): Changes to the text cursor, selects the whole story, applies Body text style, then goes to the first paragrah and applies Intro style

Tabloid (Opens a template): A very simple script hard coded with the folder and name of a template, in this case the Tabloid.pmt template in the templates folder.

ChangeFontOfStyle (Changes a style's font): This script gets the font of the current selection and makes that the font of the current style. You can change just one word in an example of a style and this will change all instances of that style to the same font.

Fraemz (Opens Fraemz plugin): If you have it, this script will open the Fraemz plugin. An example of how to open plugins with a double click. Fraemz is difficult to set because of that 'ae' ligature in the name.

FormatCopy & FormatPaste (Pair of scripts to apply character style): The first script copies the format of selected text, and the second applies that format to a different selection of text.

PageTools (Starts the PageTools plugin): If you have managed to get PageTools, this will start the program toolbar in PM7.

ReducePage (Reduces page so objects just fit): This is a useful first step to creating a PDF or EPS file from a page, so there is no space around the objects.

SplitList (Demo of splitting items in a list): This is an example of how items in a list can be separated. You need to open the script in the script editor or a text editor to see what it does.

OrderList (Puts a list into numeric order): Again an example of something which would be used in a longer script. Not a working script in itself.

OrderList-2 (Puts two lists into the same order): Based on OrderList, this puts a list into numeric order, then puts an associated list into the same sequence. Intended as an example, not a working script.

MakeFrameBigEnough (Enlarges text frame to fit contents): This script works in itself but again is one likely to be of more use as part of a larger script.

NoBreakToLastWord (of a Paragraph): Ensures the last word of a paragraph does not hyphenate, which can help with some awkward widows).

NoBreak-Remove (Reverses previous script): Removes the nobreak setting.

NoSpell (Sets Dictionary setting of selected text to "none"): This can be useful if you have long lists which you do not want to be spell checked.

BottomsDown (Vertical justification): Vertical justification of columns in PageMaker seems to be on most people's wish lists. We haven't been able to achieve that, but this comes close. It adds space between paragraphs to make the shorter of two columns roughly the same length as the longer. The problems are of two kinds: PageMaker's internal measurement system and the necessity to have some kind of rounding. If you find a better way, let us know.

NoBlankLines (Gets rid of double carriage returns): Removes extra blank paragraphs. Place the cursor anywhere in a story.

ArrowHead (a very simple arrowhead): Demonstrates how the polygon tool can be scripted.

SetPrefs (Set PageMaker preferences): This script is DANGEROUS as it alters many default settings. It is fully commented so you can change it to do what you want. We've selected the ones we like. Delete or comment out any which you do not understand! You can apply it with no file open to change the overall defaults, and use it on an open file to set the file preferences for older files. No responsibility is accepted for misuse.

Automation

The set of scripts referred to in the Automation chapter. The file is available as a zip file, Autolay.zip or as a self-extracting stuffed file, Autolay.sea or Autolay.sea.hqx (Note that for the scripts to work on a Mac they must be directly in the Scripts folder, not in a sub-folder of that)

There are well over 50 scripts listed above or in the compressed autolay file.

And don't forget there are scripts included with PageMaker 7 which will do the following:

Reset graphics resolution to grayout, high or normal

Create and manipulate hyperlinks

Set all black type and/or lines to overprint

Create a calendar template and spiral pad template (in addition to the template files which are with PageMaker)

Create a frame round each text block,

Copy a threaded set of frames from a master page to all pages associated with that master in a specified range of page numbers.

Merge two framed stories into one; merge two threaded stories in text blocks into one

Remove empty frames at the end of a story

Unthread two threaded frames; or unthread two selected threaded story blocks

Find overset text

Remove unused styles

Styles info: creates a new publication with info on allthe styles used in a publication

Scale a text block by any specified percentage

Find the next textblock or frame in a threaded story

Most of the above scripts were created by Vladimir Samarskiy (the man who created the PageMaker scripting engine) who has an amazing amount of information about PageMaker scripting on his web site at <http://www.oz.net/~vsamarsk/PageMakerScripting.htm>

See also the scripts page of this site