Category Archives: illustrator

Illustrator: Delete Invisible Layers

By ian | Published: January 11, 2011
A pretty descriptive name, yeah? This script is similar to Illustrator’s “Flatten Layers”, but it will leave your visible layers intact, rather than squishing everything onto one. n.b. if you’ve carefully locked certain layers, this will reset everything to unlocked. The script could certainly be tweaked (by someone less lazy than me) to remember which [...]
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Illustrator: All Layers Visible

By ian | Published: December 4, 2009
Some layers aren't visible? BAM! Now they are.
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Illustrator: Turn Off Artboard Junk

By ian | Published: December 3, 2009
Illustrator CS4 has artboards. All well and good. However, the amount of information that these things are festooned with defies belief – it’s like being in the cockpit of a Stealth Bomber. OK I’m exaggerating (slightly) but this script kills the cross hairs, safe areas, and center markers on all your artboards, in one fell [...]
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Illustrator: Save Copy as AI3

By ian | Published: December 3, 2009
Save the frontmost document as an Illustrator 3 file. Handy for programs that import Illustrator, but don’t recognise the latest versions (such as Cinema 4D). Download Save-copy-as-AI3.rb.zip The source code is available for your perusal below.
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Illustrator: Merge Selected Text

By ian | Published: December 3, 2009
Often, when opening a PDF in Illustrator, the text is split into a whole bunch of discrete chunks. This will (hopefully) speed up merging them back together. Just select the text and run the script. Bingo! Download Merge-selected-text.rb.zip. The source code is licking its wounds below.
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Illustrator: Renumber Artboards

By ian | Published: December 3, 2009
Renumber artboards from left to right, top to bottom. Handy when you’re creating a storyboard and need to add or delete frames. Here’s a demonstration. Double click it for full screen – if you’re man enough. Download Renumber-artboards.rb.zip. Source code, after the jump. Stay tuned!
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Illustrator: Fit Artboard to Artwork

By ian | Published: December 3, 2009
This fits the first artboard to the geometric bounds of all the page items in your document. Unfortunately I can’t get it to just shrink one artboard to its contents; the geometric bounds apply to every page item on every artboard. Still, better than getting a splinter under your fingernail. Download Fit artboard to artwork.rb. [...]
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  • What’s this all about then?

    rb-appscript is a powerful way to automate your Mac. It's similar to Applescript but it's built in Ruby, which means you get to leverage that language's powerful syntax and libraries. Giving you more time to make toasted sandwiches. You want long-winded explanations? We got those.

    Please note that these scripts are by no means bulletproof, and are intended to provide examples of application scripting. I take no resposibility for any loss of data or mishaps; you download and run everything at your own risk. That said, I use all of these scripts in a production environment every day (well – more accurately, I use some of these scripts in a production environment most days).