I’m not proficient in apple script coding, so I would appreciate a bit of help.
Often I want to change paragraph spacing, but I want to do it via keyboard shortcut, not with mouse.
So I have this script (created with claude.ai):
tell application id "DNtp"
set frontmost_record to record of think window 1
-- Try setting line spacing on the text itself
set line spacing of rich text of frontmost_record to 1.3
end tell
I think it’s because you’re changing what you’re working on as far as DEVONthink is concerned – you’re working at the document level, so the text area loses focus.
After some experimentation, I found after your script runs that you can return to the text window at the prior insertion point with ⌃-Tab, so that can be added to your script via System Events:
tell application id "DNtp"
set frontmost_record to record of think window 1
-- Try setting line spacing on the text itself
set line spacing of rich text of frontmost_record to 1.3
delay 1
tell application "System Events" to keystroke (ASCII character 9) using control down
end tell
The delay 1 allows the format modification to be processed before sending the UI level keystroke.
This is currently working for me, no matter where the insertion point is when I run it, including in a 4k+ document – I don’t know if a larger delay would be needed for larger documents, but you could perhaps figure out, via experimentation, a “per kilobyte delay” by getting the size of the content. I haven’t even experimented with sub-second delays, but that’s pretty straightforward for you to try.
Lastly, keep in mind “line spacing” is in points, so you’re going from default 0.0 points between lines to 1.3 – is that your intention, or did you mean to use 1.3 as a multiple (in which case you’d use multiple line height, not line spacing)?
OK, I couldn’t resist, I tried sub-second delays. for some reason there are weird results with that. Sometimes the ⌃-Tab endds up in the text area, sometimes the cursor is already there and the ⌃-Tab ends up in the tags bar at the bottom of the window (which I have showing).
1 seconds seems to just work, even at 5MB files, so I’d stick with that.
There are several examples available in the menu Scripts > Format. In this case a single line is sufficient. To modify only the text selection, use selected text instead of rich text.
tell application id "DNtp" to set line spacing of rich text of think window 1 to 1.3
@stratadata / @cgrunenberg thank you very much , really really appreciated .. I’ve learned some new things
Few comments from my side:
first, ^ + Tab actually works: when conversing with AI it was suggesting cmd + arrow down but it was not working
second , indeed, what I needed was multiple line height
third, yes, I was interested in whole document, not just selection: my need here is that often I instantly open new rtf with keyboard shortcut and start typing and after 2-3 lines I just need (sometimes) to change the spacing , I mean the multiple line height
fourth, I’ve checked the Scripts Folder → Format, indeed good to learn a few new tricks how to manipulate formatting.
Side question, I cannot figure out what is being achieved with the underscore in the naming of first two files - I assume it has to do with visual separators in the menu ?
I tried this with the script provided by stratadata , also I was experimenting with commenting of delay and ^ + Tab lines.
Then I tried with script provided in Scripts folder (the one c/p below with minimal changes). Then manually I select whole text if rtf (cmd + a)
tell selected text of think window 1
set line spacing to 1.3
end tell
and the effect is the same.
Then of course I tried with manual select + manually selecting (with mouse) from the menu → this didn’t mess up the outline.
So just wanted to share with the community here.
I guess I’ll stick to the manual way
tell application id "DNtp"
if (selected text of think window 1) is "" then return
tell rich text of think window 1
set line spacing to 0.5
end tell
end tell
Development would have to assess this but it appears the AppleScript command isn’t affecting rich text. It is adding an entry to the Spacing popup but not applying the value, even when selected manually…
The popup just shows the line spacing of the current selection, meaning that the script was successful. But.a line spacing of 0.5 points is of course more or less invisible.
I found using multiples of 10 when changing the line spacing item (which is in pts) much easier to see the effect. I couldn’t tell the difference at the original 1.3, not sure if 2.0 would be much better.
For line height multiple attribute (called multiple line height in AppleScript), I just used 1x and 3x, once again, to better visualise what was changing, and how quickly.
I may or may not explore more if I ever want to do this programmatically.
I cannot tell why the bullet indents are being reset, it’s not even using the first (or last) indent.
