export illustrator paragraph styles

August 29, 2007 11:59 AM

How can I extract the font and color information from an *Illustrator* file's paragraph styles and character styles? An ordered plain-text list would be great, coded CSS based on style names even greater.

I know this is possible to do in inDesign using tags linked to styles, but I can't seem to figure out a way to do it in Illustrator. For that matter, how can I import my Illustrator paragraph styles to inDesign?

The metadata for the file revealed in Bridge lists all my palettes, but not just used colors, and it lists the fonts, but no specific size per paragraph style.

Thanks in advance!

posted by pinto to Media & Arts (1 answer total)

Aside from opening the file and actually selecting the text in question, I can't see a way of doing this.

However, Illustrator (CS at least, earlier ones too I think) has a scripting interface that use Javascript (basically).

With that scripting interface I think it would be possibly to make a script that can do this.
Adobe: Illustrator Scripting
Script Examples from 'Adobe Illustrator Scripting' Book
Adobe Illustrator CS Scripting GettingStarted with JavaScript (PDF)
CS3 Javascript Reference

Looking at the reference, there is a CharacterAttribute object that will give you fillColor and textFont which is probably what you want. Trick is then, just to go through and extract them all out to something useful.
posted by sycophant at 4:43 PM on August 29, 2007