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Please refer to the “read-me” PDF which was included with your download. It includes information on that plugin’s features as well as basic support information. More detailed usage information will soon be available here.
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Overview
With the TextSync plugin, you can export text objects, either point text or area text, to a tab-delimited text file that can be opened in a word processor or spreadsheet for editing outside of Adobe Illustrator. If each text object contains, say, a bold head, italic subhead, and description, your spreadsheet would show each callout as a row with a new column wherever the text formatting changes.
When the text is imported back into the Illustrator document, the plugin first locates the original text object and flows the new text in, preserving the original character formatting.
If there is no corresponding text object, each line item becomes a new point text object in the visible document view.
Exporting text
To export text from text objects, select File > TextSync > Export Text Objects. If some text objects are selected, only the selected text objects will be exported. If nothing is selected, all text objects will be exported.
Important: After exporting text, your document must be saved to preserve the connection between your exported tags and the text objects they refer to.
In the exported file, any change in character formatting will be represented as a tab. Actual tabs in the Adobe Illustrator text object will be represented as “<t>” and “<p>” will represent paragraph returns. Each text callout will be written on one line so that text with formatting changes could be opened in a spreadsheet program as tab-delimited text. DO NOT DELETE THE XMLID AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH LINE.
Importing text
To import text into text objects, select File > TextSync > Import Text Objects.
- Items specifying a valid XMLID of a text object previously exported will be imported into the corresponding text object.
- Items with an invalid XMLID or no XMLID will be added as a new point text object.
To copy data to the clipboard rather than sending it to a text file, press the Alt or Option key while selecting File > TextSync > Export Text Objects.
To read data from the clipboard rather than opening a text file, press the Alt or Option key while selecting File > TextSync > Import Text Objects.
Tagging text
This is a feature to assist those doing advanced scripting, who need to identify text objects by their XML ID. To tag text objects, select File > TextSync > Tag Text Objects.
Adobe Illustrator will attach a tag (visible only to scripts and plugins) with the name “obj_XML_ID” and its contents set to the XML ID of the text object.