🚀 go-pugleaf

Here's another version of the script that works by context. This time, list the paragraph styles you want ignored (if any).



property ignoreThese : {"StyleName", "AnotherStyle"}

-- this script auto-numbers paragraphs to a depth of three 
-- based on the content of the paragraphs up to the first space 
-- paragraphs using styles listed in the property are ignored 
-- paragraphs with no spaces are ignored

set oldDelims to AppleScript's text item delimiters 
tell application "InDesign 2.0.2" 
 set myStory to parent story of selection 
 set theLim to count of paragraphs of myStory 
 set topCount to 1 
 set secondCount to 1 
 set thirdCount to 1 
 repeat with n from 1 to theLim 
  set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {" "} 
  set myStyle to name of applied paragraph style of paragraph n of myStory 
  if myStyle is not in ignoreThese then 
   set theText to contents of paragraph n of myStory 
   set theParts to every text item of theText 
   if contents of item 1 of theParts is not equal to theText then 
    -- paragraph has at least one space 
    set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"."} 
    set theLevel to count of text items of item 1 of theParts 
    if theLevel = 1 then 
     set word 1 of paragraph n of myStory to topCount as string 
     set topCount to topCount + 1 
     set secondCount to 1 
     set thirdCount to 1 
    else if theLevel = 2 then 
     set word 1 of paragraph n of myStory to (topCount - 1) as string 
     set word 2 of paragraph n of myStory to secondCount as string 
     set secondCount to secondCount + 1 
     set thirdCount to 1 
    else if theLevel = 3 then 
     set word 1 of paragraph n of myStory to (topCount - 1) as string 
     set word 2 of paragraph n of myStory to (secondCount - 1) as string 
     set word 3 of paragraph n of myStory to thirdCount as string 
     set thirdCount to thirdCount + 1 
    end if 
   end if 
  end if 
 end repeat 
end tell 
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldDelims 




There are ways of dealing with splitting the document as you've done. For instance, if the number of the section is in the document title, then the script can get the number from the document name and use that to seed the initial value of topcount.

I think you're going to have to learn some scripting, but this job is not that hard now I've given you this start.

Dave