rulers

InDesign Utility

The rulers utility adds the rulers.set() method. This method sets rulers to the desired units. It returns the original ruler-settings which we can pass back to reset the rulers to original state.

Install

npm install @extendscript/ind.util.rulers

Use

Load the module

var Rulers = Sky.getUtil("rulers");

set

Rulers.set( app.activeDocument, "INCHES");

The set() function returns the state of the rulers BEFORE the update, making it easy to reset the ruler back to original state:

// Set document ruler units to mm and save original settings

var PrevState = Rulers.set( app.activeDocument, "mm");

Rulers.set( app.activeDocument, MeasurementUnits.INCHES);

// Revert to original ruler units
Rulers.set( Doc, PrevState );

get

With the get function you can get the current ruler state:

Rulers.get( Doc )

Returns an object with the following keys:

• xruler
• yruler
• origin
• zeroPoint

indUnitsFrom

You can get the indesign MeasurementUnits value from a string or number:

// MeasurementUnits.MILLIMETERS
Rulers.indUnitsFrom( mm ); // returns 2054188905

niceNameFor

As unit values are generally not nicely formatted for user interfaces we added the niceNameFor() function that return the user friendly name in long or short form:

// Returns "points"
Rulers.niceNameFor(MeasurementUnits.POINTS)
Rulers.niceNameFor("pt")

// Returns abbreviated version "pt"
Rulers.niceNameFor(MeasurementUnits.POINTS, true)
Rulers.niceNameFor("Points", true)

convert

The Rulers module can also convert unit values:

Ruler.convert( measure, fromUnit, toUnit )

numToGridStep

You can also round values to closest grid value for grid bases work.

var aligned = Rulers.numToGridStep( value, gridStep )

Test

You can test the code against a range of targets:

npm run test target-1 target-2

We keep a log of test results