Adobe CC ExtendScript Automation Scripts

A professional collection of Adobe Creative Cloud automation scripts written in ExtendScript (.jsx) — the ES3-based scripting language built into Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and other CC applications.

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Repository Structure

jsx-scripts/
├── .vscode/
│   └── settings.json        # Workspace settings for ExtendScript in VS Code
├── src/
│   ├── indesign/            # InDesign-specific scripts
│   │   ├── Boilerplate.jsx  # Starter template for new InDesign scripts
│   │   └── ExportPDFs.jsx   # Batch-export open documents as PDFs
│   ├── illustrator/         # Illustrator-specific scripts (add yours here)
│   └── shared/              # Cross-app utilities
│       └── utils.jsx        # Logging (writeLog) and helper (getScriptFolder)
├── .eslintrc.json           # ESLint config — enforces ES3 / ExtendScript rules
├── jsconfig.json            # VS Code IntelliSense for Adobe types
├── package.json             # Dev dependencies (eslint, types-for-adobe)
├── .gitignore
└── README.md

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For End-Users: Installing Scripts into Adobe InDesign

These .jsx files can be run directly from InDesign's Scripts Panel. Follow these steps to install them permanently:

1. Open the Scripts Panel in InDesign: Window → Utilities → Scripts

2. Reveal the User Scripts folder on disk:

   • In the Scripts Panel, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (macOS) the User folder.
   • Select Reveal in Explorer (Windows) or Reveal in Finder (macOS).
   • This opens the folder: .../Adobe InDesign/Scripts/Scripts Panel/

3. Copy the script files from this repository into that folder:

   • You can copy individual .jsx files, or create a sub-folder (e.g. My Scripts/) and drop them inside.
   • Example: copy src/indesign/ExportPDFs.jsx into the Scripts Panel folder.

4. Run a script — it now appears in the Scripts Panel. Double-click it to execute.

Tip: You can also run any .jsx file on-the-fly via File → Scripts → Browse… in InDesign without permanently installing it.

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For Developers: Setting Up the Dev Environment

The dev tooling provides ES3 linting and Adobe API autocomplete inside VS Code.

Prerequisites

• Node.js (v14 or later)
• VS Code
• ESLint VS Code extension

Setup

# 1. Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/cwhit-io/jsx-scripts.git
cd jsx-scripts

# 2. Install dev dependencies (types-for-adobe + eslint)
npm install

After running npm install, VS Code will automatically use the types-for-adobe type definitions specified in jsconfig.json. You will get IntelliSense for objects like app.documents, app.activeDocument, TextFrame, etc.

Linting

# Lint all .jsx source files
npm run lint

The .eslintrc.json is configured to enforce ES3-compatible code — it will warn or error if you accidentally use let, const, arrow functions, template literals, or other modern JS features that are not supported by ExtendScript.

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ExtendScript Coding Conventions

All .jsx files in this repository follow these rules to stay ES3-compliant and safe:

Rule	Correct	Avoid
Variable declarations	var x = 1;	let x = 1; / const x = 1;
Functions	function foo() {} or var foo = function() {}	Arrow functions () => {}
Strings	"hello " + name	Template literals `hello ${name}`
Scope protection	Wrap scripts in an IIFE (function(){ ... })();	Top-level code
Shared code	Namespace objects var MyUtils = { ... }	ES6 modules / import / export

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Available Scripts

src/shared/utils.jsx

Shared utilities included by other scripts via #include:

• MyUtils.writeLog(message) — Appends a timestamped entry to ~/Desktop/adobe-scripts.log.
• MyUtils.getScriptFolder() — Returns the Folder of the currently running script.

src/indesign/Boilerplate.jsx

A minimal starter script. Checks whether a document is open and logs the document name. Use this as a template when writing new InDesign scripts.

src/indesign/ExportPDFs.jsx

Batch-exports all currently open InDesign documents as press-quality PDFs to a user-selected folder.

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Contributing

1. Fork the repository.
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b feature/my-new-script
3. Write your script in the appropriate src/<app>/ folder, following the ES3 conventions above.
4. Run npm run lint to validate your code.
5. Open a Pull Request.

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License

MIT