Batch-convert/export documents

Description

The script (batch) converts and exports files/documents. It can be used to export InDesign documents to PDF or other formats, but also to update large amounts of InDesign documents to a newer version, e.g. from ID4 to ID5. Essentially it works the same as the CS2 version, but, obviously, to convert large numbers of CS2 documents to CS3, this one (the CS3 script) is needed. (The main difference is that the interface was written using scriptUI, which allows more consistent and precise layout and some fancy things such as dimming irrelevant choices.)

Use

With no documents open, the script displays the dialog shown in the screen shot. At 'Folder' you enter the folder where the files are that you want to convert; to browse to a folder, type an asterisk (*) and press Enter/Return. To type a folder name, use the platform-neutral format (/d/books/) or any of the platform-specific forms (d:\books\ on Windows).

The remaining options will be clear: tick 'Include subfolders' to include all subfolders of the selected folder; tick 'Ignore errors' to ignore errors such as missing fonts and missing links; pick source and destination formats at 'From' and 'To'; if converting to PDF, a preset can be selected at 'PDF presets'. The converted files are placed in the same folder as the source files (when converting InDesign to InDesign, make copies to be on the safe side).

Instead of choosing a folder to select files to convert, you can also convert the currently open documents. If any documents are open, "Folder" and "Include subfolder" are dimmed.

The conversion to RTF combines all stories into one story, and pulls the contents of inline frames into their containing story.