Format Unicode string for InDesign. A Coldfusion UDF.

I was generating InDesign JSX files with Coldfusion, to create pdfs that happened to have Unicode characters in it. That is not a difficult task, but rather boring one, until I realize, I cannot use Unicode characters inside InDesign JavaScript file. JSX only accept Unicode characters by their "glyph id number" or "code point" or whatever the name you geeks prefer to call it. So here I put together a small ColdFusion function to format all Unicode characters in a string, to inDesign friendly code points. I prefer to save ascii characters as it is, so if I had to read the converted string, it would make some sense to me.

This function will convert a sting like "Peace™ Justice® and යුනිකෝඩ්"

In to InDesign script friendly string like

"Peace\u2122 Justice\u00AE and \u0DBA\u0DD4\u0DB1\u0DD2\u0D9A\u0DDD\u0DA9\u0DCA"

   1: <cffunction

   2:  name        = "toCodePoint"

   3:  returntype ="string"

   4:  output     = "no"

   5:  description = "Convert Unicode in to inDesign friendly code point values">

   6:      <cfargument name="string" required="Yes" type="string">

   7:     

   8:      <cfset newString = "">

   9:      <cfloop from="1" to="#len(arguments.string)#" index="i">

  10:      <cfset thisChr    = mid(string,i,1)>

  11:          <cfset deci    = asc(thisChr)>        

  12:  <cfif deci gt 4096>

  13:              <cfset newString = "#newString#\u#Ucase(FormatBaseN(deci,16))#">

  14:          <cfelseif deci gt 255>

  15:              <cfset newString = "#newString#\u0#Ucase(FormatBaseN(deci,16))#">

  16:          <cfelseif deci gt 127>

  17:              <cfset newString = "#newString#\u00#Ucase(FormatBaseN(deci,16))#">

  18:          <cfelse>

  19:              <cfset newString = "#newString##thisChr#">

  20:          </cfif>

  21:      </cfloop>

  22:     

  23:      <cfreturn newString>

  24:  </cffunction>

Show/Hide Line Numbers . Full Screen . Plain