PageMaker scripting

PageMaker can be automated to the extent that you could find yourself sitting back and watching the screen as the program makes up the pages on its own.

But before you can do that, there will be a lot to do: first you have to work out exactly what repetitive work you do manually, and you can make a start by automating some of the small tasks which you undertake many times every day.

A good guide is: If you did it before and you know you'll have to do it again, then script it.

Below you will find a few scripts that will simplify some tasks for you.

PageMaker scripting is cross-platform, so basically, with a few small reservations, a script written on and for PageMaker under Windows will work just as well on a Mac. They are text files: lists of the commands.

However, PageMaker 6.5 added some things that scripting in earlier versions of PageMaker did not have: especially the ability to question the current state of the program (where things are and what they are), and then act on that information.

A few scripts

Most of these are presented as straight text files which can be viewed in your browser ready to copy and paste, or downloaded. Save them with an .spt extension for Windows, or with no extension for the Mac. Please return to this space soon for access to more simple free cross-platform PageMaker scripts.

"Styles In a Line" - is a script which should come in useful for creating tables without TableEditor. Use tabs in lines of text but easily have different styles applied to each column. The first time it is run, this script creates a new style for each tab in the selected area. Change the definitions of those styles to suit your needs, and run the script again. It will apply those different styles to the sections of each line between the tabs.

"SmartTitleCase" - on an increasing number of publications, especially in the UK and Australia, but even now in the UK it is common not to use upper case for the first character of prepositions, articles, and conjunctions, except at the beginning of the title. This script starts with a list of words which should not be capped, and you can add to it. This script was written originally by Gordon Woolf and modified by Jonathan Bressel. To see what the original script looked like, click here
"Blob" - a script to change a dot/space combination in text to a proper dingbat blob.
"Shadow" - a script to add a very simple shadow to a text heading.
"Douplep" - this finds and replaces double paragraph returns with single ones; it's a good starter script to build up to better things.
"View60" - see your work at the percentage view you want. A one-line script.
"Format copy" will let you select some text (from a single character upwards) and transfer the attributes to any other piece of text, and then go on using those combined attributes until you do it all again. It's actually two scripts so we've combined them either in a tiny (1.5kb) zip file (for PC), or a 35kb hqx archive (for Mac). Try it, we'd like your comments.
"VertBar" - this script creates a vertical bar on the left side of a paragraph.
"Make No Style" - this script turns all text in a file to "no style" so that it can be copied and pasted into another PM document without problems from styles of the same name in the receiving document.
"Savetwice" - this is a text file containing two versions of a script to save a backup copy of a file. The first version gets the file name, adds a figure "1" to the name and saves it, then it saves back to the original name for you to continue working. The second version adds to the name some figures based on the time since the computer started so it will add a new backup (which could get out of hand if you are not careful).
"CopyFile" is a script by Jonathan G. Bressel which assists with certain Bad Record Index (BRI) errors related to corrupt styles. It makes a new copy of a file. This is much quicker, but not as reliable, as Olav Kvern's "object recorder" script which can be found (along with a Mac-compressed ".sit" copy of Jonathan's script, on the PageMakr List web site at "Troubleshooting a Damaged PageMaker Document"
Jonathan also has a set of scripts to do footnotes in PageMaker. Email bressel@sefer.org for details of "NoteMaker Footnote & endnote production in PageMaker".

And just in case you haven't found it, here's where the the Script Language Guide is in PageMaker: In PageMaker 7 it is a PDF called ScriptGuide.pdf and will be found in the techinfo folder. For PM6.5: Windows: Help> Help topics > Contents > Script Language Guide (it's the last item in the contents window) Mac: Help> PageMaker Help Topics > Contents > Using Scripts > Creating and Editing Scripts > Script Language Guide

More information on PageMaker scripting:

Marc Zeedar's PM Scripting page Scripts from Marc and from other PageMaker users plus the PM scripting FAQ

Vladimir's Automation Page More scripts for a wide range of purposes from the person who wrote the scripting language.

Sadly, the PageMaker Scripting site by Hans Hansen is offline. Hans literally "wrote the book" on PageMaker scripting (PageMaker Scripting, Adobe Press) but it is included here in the hope that it may be revived. It included updates, corrections and extra scripts plus a PDF version of the book. If you can, buy a secondhand copy of the book.