"Transforming Selections in Illustrator through Scripting: A Step-by-Step Guide

In Illustrator, I successfully used an ExtendScript Toolkit JavaScript code to select multiple elements like text, paths, and symbols across different layers. Now, I am looking to resize them uniformly and then reposition them together.

While I can apply transformations to individual objects using code, looping through each element would be time-consuming and result in transformations being anchored differently for each element, leading to inconsistencies in my drawings.

Is there a way to replicate the scale transformation available in Illustrator's UI through code (JavaScript), allowing me to resize multiple selected elements uniformly with ease?

javascriptadobe-illustratorextendscript

Answer №1

Here are three effective ways to achieve this task:

  1. One option is to record AI actions that carry out the necessary transformations, and then execute these actions using DoScript in your script.

  2. An alternative method is to group the selected objects and apply the required transformations to the group, as suggested by @Dane. It is important to back up the Layer object property in order to restore the objects to their original layers. Below is a VBA example demonstrating this technique:

    For i = Index_Lo To Index_Hi
    Call Layers_Backup.Add(Item:=SelectedItems(i).Layer, Key:=Format(i))
    Call SelectedItems(i).Move(Temp_Group, AiElementPlacement.aiPlaceAtEnd)
Next i

Call Temp_Group.Resize(scaleX:=120, scaleY:=120, changeLineWidths:=120)

For i = Index_Lo To Index_Hi
    Call SelectedItems(i).Move(Layers_Backup(Format(i)), AiElementPlacement.aiPlaceAtEnd)
Next i

  3. A third approach involves utilizing Windows API functions (such as 

    PostMessage (..., WM_COMMAND, ..., ...)
    , SendDlgItemMessage, FindWindowEx, etc.) to display, populate, and execute the necessary AI transformations dialog boxes.

In my opinion, item #1 is the simplest to implement, while item#2 offers the most reliable solution.

Answer №2

When it comes to efficiently handling a selection in scripting, there may be no avoiding some form of looping. However, one alternative approach could involve grouping the selected elements for quicker processing. By looping through the selection and adding them to a group, you might achieve faster results compared to individually scaling and moving each element. Utilizing the group object allows for convenient operations such as groupObject.scale() and .translate(). Below is an excerpt extracted from my own script:

#target "illustrator"
var aiApp = app.activeDocument;
var aSelection = aiApp.selection;
var aGroup = app.activeDocument.groupItems.add();

for (i=0; i < aSelection.length; i++){
aSelection[i].move( aGroup, ElementPlacement.INSIDE); 
aSelection[i].move( aGroup, ElementPlacement.PLACEATEND);  
 }
//moves up 700 points and scales by 200
aGroup.translate(0,700)
aGroup.resize(200, 200, true , true, true, true, 200)

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