InDesign2027
InDesign2027 InDesign Server2025 Illustrator31 PhotoshopCC 2015.5 Bridge2027 Media Encoder2027 Core JavaScriptExtendScript only ScriptUIExtendScript only
API 22.0.0.104
Product

InDesign

Adobe InDesign 2027 (22.0.0.104) Object Model. 1101 entries. What’s new since InDesign 2026 →

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InDesign-Skripting-Kurzreferenz: the object model on one page, with the classes app, Document, Page, TextFrame, Story and Text and the properties connecting them. InDesign-Skripting-Kurzreferenz The object model on one page: which class holds which collection, what a property returns, and how you get from app to a single character. One landscape page, German labels, English identifiers. PDF, 288 KB.

ExtendScript and UXP

InDesign runs scripts in two engines. Both drive the same object model — the objects, properties and methods on these pages. What differs is the language around it. The ExtendScript / UXP switch in the header shows every page as the chosen engine sees it.

ExtendScript

  • .jsx files, run from the Scripts panel
  • JavaScript at the level of ES3 (1999): var, no let, arrow functions or promises
  • app, every enumeration, File, Folder and $ are globals
  • doc.pages[0] or doc.pages.item(0)
  • Enumerations compare with ==
  • Property check: obj.hasOwnProperty("name") or "name" in obj
  • Arguments: app.scriptArgs.getValue("name"), or arguments in a script run by doScript()
  • The result is the value of the last expression
  • Dialogs with ScriptUI
// hello.jsx
var doc = app.documents.add();
var frame = doc.pages[0].textFrames.add();
frame.geometricBounds = [20, 20, 40, 120];
frame.contents = "Hello World";
var para = frame.paragraphs[0];
para.justification = Justification.CENTER_ALIGN;
if (para.justification == Justification.CENTER_ALIGN) {
  alert("centered");
}

UXP

  • .idjs files, run from the Scripts panel; UXP plugins since 18.5
  • Modern JavaScript: let, const, arrow functions, async/await
  • const { app } = require("indesign") — enumerations come from there too
  • doc.pages.item(0) only — there is no [0]
  • Enumerations compare with .equals(), not ==
  • Property check: "name" in obj only — hasOwnProperty() is always false on DOM objects
  • Arguments: require("uxp").script.args, an array of strings — app.scriptArgs does not exist
  • The result is what you pass to script.setResult(); the last expression is ignored
  • Files come from require("uxp").storage; file and folder properties return a Promise — await doc.fullName
  • No ScriptUI, no $, no E4X XML; the user interface is HTML
// hello.idjs
const { app, Justification } = require("indesign");
const doc = app.documents.add();
const frame = doc.pages.item(0).textFrames.add();
frame.geometricBounds = [20, 20, 40, 120];
frame.contents = "Hello World";
const para = frame.paragraphs.item(0);
para.justification = Justification.CENTER_ALIGN;
if (para.justification.equals(Justification.CENTER_ALIGN)) {
  console.log("centered");
}

Adobe UXP documentation·Migrating from ExtendScript·Arguments·Script result·uxp.md — the full list of differences, for people and AI agents

For editors and AI agents

Types

ExtendScript is not a browser. With the DOM library loaded, Document, Event, Text and Window resolve to the browser versions and the declarations below them go unseen — doc.pages unknown, doc.createElement offered instead. Save this next to your scripts as jsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": { "lib": ["es5"], "types": [], "checkJs": false },
  "include": ["**/*.js", "**/*.d.ts"]
}

Objects 425

Collections 244

Enumerations 432