Adobe ExtendScript

So Adobe offers a possibility to write scripts for their products: Extendscript docs

I used it for my project on sketch vectorization, to get a large dataset of drawings. The idea is to take simple drawings in vector format and render (rasterize) them with artistic brushes from Adobe Illustrator.

They even offer a debug environment, although it’s quite old: ExtendScript Toolkit

Warning: Illustrator gives no respect to svg files. I ended up adding invisible frame (with width 0 and transparent color) to know the exact dimensions of svg file to center it properly in script itself.

Last year I was generating that data by manually clicking “run” once every 500 images. Awful decision.

Now I’m old and wise, I wrote a bash batch script to do it for me. Was it nice? No.

To run your script from shell command use "path_to_toolkit.exe" -run "path_to_script.jsx"

"C:\Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit CC\ExtendScript Toolkit.exe" -run "C:\style.jsx"

Now in order to prevent Illustrator asking “You sure you want to run it?” you need to place your script in a trusted directory.

Just move “.jsx” file with script to Documents/Adobe Scripts. So reliable, so trustworthy, have fun with paths.

Finally, batch script. Long story short:

@echo off
for /L %%n in (1,1,10) do (
    echo %%n
    START /WAIT "" "C:\Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit CC\ExtendScript Toolkit.exe" -run "C:\Users\ivanp\Documents\Adobe Scripts\stylize.jsx"""
    timeout 120
)

• START /WAIT "" required so that this command at least waits until Illustrator is opening before running to the next line
• timeout 120 waits for 120 seconds before contunuing loop. Why 120? Manual measure. Batch scripts are wild.

Maybe in a year I will become even wiser and find a better solution.