🚀 go-pugleaf

OK, we can simplify things with a template. Make a new doc, no facing pages, and go to the A Master page. Draw frames where you want the pics to go, and text frames for the captions. Now go to the Windows menu and choose Script Label, which brings up a palette that lets you label the frames.

With the selection tool, click on the first pic frame, then go to the Script Label palette and enter 1, followed by a return. Go to the second and enter 2, and so on. Do the same thing for the caption frames (again starting from 1). Save your finished template. (You probably also want to apply styling to the caption frames.)

Now for the easy part. Paste the following script into a window in Script Editor, and save it as an application. Because it contains an "on open" handler, it will become a droplet.

With the template open, go to the Finder, select a bunch of pictures, and drag-and-drop them as a batch over the script application. Bob's your uncle.



 
on open fileList -- contains list of pic files 
	set frameCounter to 1 -- counter to use to work through frame names 
	tell application "InDesign 2.0.2" 
		tell document 1 
			set theMaster to master spread 1 -- needed when adding pages later 
			get master page items of page -1 -- overrides items from master 
			-- loop through pics 
			repeat with aPic in fileList 
				-- get name of pic for caption 
				set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters 
				set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {":"} 
				set picName to text item -1 of (aPic as text) 
				set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims

				try -- we try, in case there isn't a frame of the right label 
					place aPic on rectangle (frameCounter as text) of page -1 
					fit result given proportionally 
					set contents of text frame (frameCounter as text) of page -1 to picName 
				on error -- we've run out of frames on the page 
					set frameCounter to 1 -- reset counter 
					make page at end with properties {applied master:theMaster} -- add page 
					get master page items of page -1 -- override master items 
					place aPic on rectangle (frameCounter as text) of page -1 
					fit result given proportionally 
					set contents of text frame (frameCounter as text) of page -1 to picName 
				end try 
				set frameCounter to frameCounter + 1 -- increment counter 
			end repeat 
		end tell 
	end tell 
end open 




That should get you started.

Shane