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With the changecase function. JS can access individual words in paragraphs, in the following way



for (i=0; i<app.activeDocument.selection[0].paragraphs[0].words.length; i++)

	if (app.activeDocument.selection[0].paragraphs[0].words[i].length > 3)

		app.activeDocument.selection[0].paragraphs[0].words[i].changecase(ChangecaseMode.TITLECASE);

It is restricted to what InDesign counts as 'words' -- a combined word with a hyphen, "two-fold" for example, is taken as two words. Applying your three-letter word rule would yield a headline such as "The Dangers of sun Rays are two-Fold". So some careful post-editing is required.

why not using NestedStyles ?

robin

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www.adobescripts.com

Because I have no idea how to do that using nested styles :-)

Besides ... even if you can make it work, doesn't that apply the character style to every word? Nested styles cannot count the number of characters per word.

You can use a GREP style: create a character style that sets All Caps, then let the GREP expression \b\l(?=\w\w\w) apply that character style to the first lower-case letter of words of four or more characters long.

Peter

I first tried to mess with JavaScript cased changing -- using the built-in string function toUppercase. Then I remembered ID has a user interface function for title case, and wondered if it was the same in JS. And yes, it was -- Uppercase, Title Case, Sentence Case and Lowercase, appliable to Text, Paragraph, Characters (which is what you'd need) ... and Word. So I don't even have to extract individual characters.
There are no built-in fuctions to automatically add a character style to the first character of certain words.

If the requirements ever change -- adding color, or a font or something to the first character --, then you'd have to work around and add stuff 'manually'. I guess that's what you have in mind.

sorry :) I mean - why not to apply new ParaStyle with NestedStyle or CharaterStyle (to only first character) - instead of local formatting

robin

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www.adobescripts.com

ok - I misreaded Miguel's post - and your script - NestedStyle will not work :(

but applying CharStyle instead of local formatting ... shouldn't be so bad idea ;)

robin

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www.adobescripts.com