Monday, December 08, 2008

Export InDesign and Illustrator swatches to Flash

I'm currently writing an article for InDesign Magazine about how to export content from InDesign CS4 to Flash Professional CS4. During the process of researching and writing, I realized that there is no easy way to export color swatches from InDesign or Flash, or for Flash to read the Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE) files produced by InDesign.

So I sent a note to Justin Putney at Ajar Productions, since he is the "go-to" guy for scripting InDesign to Flash processes. I asked if he'd ever thought about writing a script to automate the process of moving color swatches from InDesign to Flash.

Justin responded by creating a clever script called Send Swatches to Flash, that does just that. Assuming that you have Flash CS4 installed on your computer, the script will export all the colors from your open InDesign or Illustrator file to the Swatches panel of the currently open Flash file, or if a Flash document isn't open, it creates a new Flash file and adds the swatches to it.

If you find Justin's script useful, consider sending him some financial encouragement using the "Donate" button on his site!

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