Selective outline text using variables?

Post Reply
emilip
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:44 pm

Selective outline text using variables?

Post by emilip »

Hi all,



I´m trying to outline text using certain fonts, while leaving other text untouched.



Is it possible to outline text based on the font name, using variables?



For example: outline all text using font "*Times*", all fonts with the name of the font including the string "Times"



Is this possible using pitstop server 11?



Many thanks
freddyp
Advanced member
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:53 pm

Selective outline text using variables?

Post by freddyp »

No, it is not possible to use wildcards in the "Select font" action. I am afraid you have to specify all the variations in the font followed by the correct number of OR's (1 less than the number of selects):



Select font Times-Roman

Select font Times-Bold

Select font Times-Italic

OR

OR

Convert text to outlines



Luckily you only have to do this once :).



What you can do with variables is this: you can add the action list to a preflight profile and make the execution of the action list variable with a boolean. In that way you can choose to run or not to run the contourization of the text.



Freddy
emilip
Newbie
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 12:44 pm

Selective outline text using variables?

Post by emilip »

Hi Freddy,



Many thanks for the reply.



Unfortunately, i need to deal with fonts i don't know the exact name from beforehand. You know, sometimes is something like "Times_XxCCVx34" is impossible to know all the variations.



So the "font name" can't be a variable?



I was thinking to get a list of fonts from the file, filter using some wildcard, and then feed this list to the action to selectively outline only certain fonts.



Any idea? or my only choice is to do this by hand in acrobat?



Emilio
freddyp
Advanced member
Posts: 413
Joined: Thu Feb 09, 2012 3:53 pm

Selective outline text using variables?

Post by freddyp »

There is something you can do. I did not want to mention it at first because it is not very nice, but it probably still beats doing it manually as you can make this in about 10 minutes, and if you need this regularly, ...



Build a variable set in Switch with e.g. 20 variables Font1, Font2, ... Font20 (or as many as the maximum number of fonts you expect to find in a document and add a few for safety). The definition for each of the variables is [Stats.Fonts:Index="1",Search=Times.*] (the index count goes up respectively of course).



Create an action list with 20 "Select fonts by name", each one using a variable Font1, Font2, ... Font20. Do not forget the 19 OR's. And then "Convert text to outlines".



Run the flow. Done.



Freddy
Post Reply