I’ve searched this and found nothing. I imagine that’s because I couldn’t identify the right search criteria, and I assume what I want would be something quite simple. (Or maybe not?)
So I’ve drafted a paper in my favourite mindmapping app, and exported the mindmap to a .txt file. When I open the latter in Pages (or any other text app, for that matter) I have a heap of paragraphs most of which have a first line indent of at least one tab-space - some as many as maybe five tab-spaces. What I want is to quickly reformat the whole thing so that every line of every paragraph is fully left-justified - i.e. all tab spaces removed.
In other words, I’d like an applescript that would automate ‘Find - Replace all with <>’.
Any suggestions? Thanks.
Model: MBP late 2011
AppleScript: 2.2.4
Browser: Safari 536.30.1
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.8)
If I have understood you right, you want to remove runs of tabs from the start of the lines. The script below does that, and saves the file you have picked with a name of original name.new.text in the same folder.
set oldfile to POSIX path of (choose file)
set {tids, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, "."}
set stem to text items 1 thru -2 of oldfile
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to tids
set newfile to stem & ".new.txt" as text
do shell script "sed -n 's/^[ ]*//p' " & quoted form of oldfile & " > " & quoted form of newfile
Thanks very much, McUsrII. That’s amazingly prompt.
Unfortunately it produced a strange result for me, though. The new file still has all the initial tabs, and it also has a blank space after every character.
tell application "Pages" to tell document 1
set body text to my remplace(body text, tab, space)
end tell
#=====
(*
replaces every occurences of d1 by d2 in the text t
*)
on remplace(t, d1, d2)
local oTIDs, l
set {oTIDs, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, d1}
set l to text items of t
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to d2
set t to "" & l
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oTIDs
return t
end remplace
#=====
KOENIG Yvan (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 8 juillet 2013 10:00:16
I really supposed that you had saved the file as a text file. Try copy the text to the clipboard, open a terminal window, and issue the command “cat >file.text” when it “hangs” hit command v, and when you see your text has been entered, then hit ctrl-C, then rerun the script.
McUsrII - that didn’t change the result. But perhaps that’s because I was trying to run it as a Hazel action?
Anyway . Yvan - your’s worked a treat. Thanks very much
Now … would you mind me craving further indulgence, if you have time? Something that would be even better still, but perhaps more complex, would be if the script would replace the first tab indent in a paragraph with a single linespace, and simply remove following tabs (if any). Could that be done?
I apologize but my English is far from perfect.
If I understand well, you wish that every leading tab is replaced by a line break (return or line feed)
and that other tabs are removed.
If these tabs are removed, the text will be something like :
Value1Value2Value3Value4
OtherValue1OtherValue2OtherValue3OtherValue4
Is it really what you want ?
Here is a script which replace leading tabs by line breaks
and replace other tab characters by space ones.
tell application "Pages" to tell document 1
set character 1 of body text to return & character 1 of body text
set body text to my remplace(body text, return & tab, return & return)
set body text to my remplace(body text, tab, space)
set character 1 of body text to ""
end tell
#=====
(*
replaces every occurences of d1 by d2 in the text t
*)
on remplace(t, d1, d2)
local oTIDs, l
set {oTIDs, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, d1}
set l to text items of t
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to d2
set t to "" & l
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oTIDs
return t
end remplace
#=====
I know that we may use lists of delimiters but I’m not at ease with this “new” feature.
KOENIG Yvan (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 8 juillet 2013 11:28:30
That is just awesome. Thank you so very much. Works superbly . Although in the process of running it, I’ve discovered that as well as having leading tabs I also have some leading spaces, which I also don’t want.
So after you’ve been so kind already, could I crave one further addition to the script … So to adapt your own words, I’d like “every leading tab replaced by a line break (return or line feed) and other tabs and leading spaces removed”.
property tab2space : true
# if you really want to suppress the tab characters without replacing them by space set the property value to false
property keepReturn : true
# true = the linefeeds will be replaced by returns
# false = the returns will be replaced by linefeeds
if keepReturn then
set {lb1, lb2} to {return, linefeed}
else
set {lb1, lb2} to {linefeed, return}
end if
tell application "Pages" to tell document 1
# according to keepReturn setting replace characters lb2 by characters lb1
set body text to my remplace(body text, lb2, lb1)
set character 1 of body text to lb1 & character 1 of body text
# remove every space char which is at beginning of a paragraph before a tab
repeat while body text contains (lb1 & space & tab)
set body text to my remplace(body text, lb1 & space & tab, lb1 & tab)
end repeat
# remove every space char which is at beginning of a paragraph just after a tab
repeat while body text contains (lb1 & tab & space)
set body text to my remplace(body text, lb1 & tab & space, lb1 & tab)
end repeat
# remove every group of tab characters which is at beginning of a paragraph by a single tab
repeat while body text contains (lb1 & tab & tab)
set body text to my remplace(body text, lb1 & tab & tab, lb1 & tab)
end repeat
# replace tab character at beginning of paragraphs by a lb1
set body text to my remplace(body text, lb1 & tab, lb1 & lb1)
# get rid of othe tab characters
if tab2space then
set body text to my remplace(body text, tab, space)
else
set body text to my remplace(body text, tab, "")
end if
set character 1 of body text to ""
end tell
#=====
(*
replaces every occurences of d1 by d2 in the text t
*)
on remplace(t, d1, d2)
local oTIDs, l
set {oTIDs, AppleScript's text item delimiters} to {AppleScript's text item delimiters, d1}
set l to text items of t
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to d2
set t to "" & l
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oTIDs
return t
end remplace
#=====
Have fun
KOENIG Yvan (VALLAURIS, France) lundi 8 juillet 2013 16:37:03
