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42
' Resize the TextFrameItem to match the document width
sampleText.Width = documentWidth
sampleText.Left = 0
End Sub
4. Save the form.
5. Open the original document you created using the "Hello World" script, then return
to Visual Basic and run the script.
6. Click the button you created in Step 2.
Measurement units
Illustrator uses points as the unit of measurement for almost all distances, where one inch is
equal to 72 points. The one exception is that for values for properties such as kerning, tracking,
and the aki properties (used for Japanese text composition), em units are used. For an
explanation of em units, see "Em Space Units" on page 43.
Even if you change the current document ruler's units of measurement, Illustrator will still use
points when communicating with your scripts. Your scripts will need to perform any unit
conversions needed to represent your measurements as points. For example, to move the
current selection to a position 2 inches to the right of, and 6 inches above, its current position,
you'd use the following script in AppleScript:
tell application "Adobe Illustrator CS"
(* first, manually select the text frame item from the previous exercise or use AppleScript to make the
selection *)
set selection to text frame item 1 of current document
(* There are 72 points per inch. To translate an item by 2 inches to the right and 6 inches to
the left, multiply by 72 )
(translate selection delta x (2 * 72) delta y (6 * 72) *)
end tell
and this script for Visual Basic:
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim appRef As New Illustrator.Application
Dim documentRef As Illustrator.Document
Dim selectedObjects As Variant
Dim objectRef As Variant
Set documentRef = appRef.ActiveDocument
selectedObjects = documentRef.Selection
12 Aug 03
Scripting Illustrator
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