Text

The text method is for changing the content and / or format of text and fitting texts to text frames or text frames to text.
Unlike Illustrator's native text variable where you can only change the entire contents of a text frame, with Darty-Ai you can change both the contents and format of either entire or parts of text frames.

See the Text Tool for the visual Find and Replace and Formatting editors.

Method editor

Text controls

More editor views

Targeting Text

To change the text of an entire text frame use the top row of the table or the tagSearch property and specify the tag of the text frame to be changed.
To change the text of specific words use the find property and specify the words to be changed.
By default only words surrounded by double {{curly}} or ((round)) parenthesis will be targeted.
Use the mode property to change this behavior.
To target specific words in a specified text frames, set both the tagSearch (or top row of the table) and the find properties.
tagSearch: animals find: cat will target the instances of cat but only the ones found in text frames tagged animals.
If you want to target a single instance of a {{template}}, give it a unique name.

In the below sample text, if you use find: consectetuer adipiscing elit the fist two instances of the find text will be targeted, the third will not, because it is not surrounded by double parenthesis. When the text is changed the parenthesis will be removed.
If you want to target all instances of a set of words including ones not surrounded by parenthesis, use mode: all, that will target all instances, parenthesis will be not be removed.

Modes

In most cases you do not need to set mode, by default if the find property is used, words surrounded by double {{curly}} and ((round)) parenthesis will be targeted.
If a tagSearch is set and the find property is not set and the entire contents of the tagged frame will be targeted.

Advanced RegEx Targeting with grep

Use the grep text parameter to leverage modern ECMAScript-style regex, including the new v (Unicode sets) flag, for ultra-specific targeting of characters — even diacritics and emojis.

These regexes allow you to:

• 🎨 Color or format only diacritics, emojis, or specific script characters.
• 🧹 Remove unwanted characters like diacritics or control marks.
• ✍️ Apply fonts or text direction based on Unicode ranges.

GREP Flags

The grep parameter can be used along with the flags parameter to set regex flags.
Valid Options for the flags property are:

Darty-Ai includes the u and g flags by default. Other flags (like i, m, or v) can be added manually after the closing /.
You can also use patterns like \p{Emoji} without slashes, if no extra flags are needed.

Replacing and Removing Text

replace is used to change the contents of the text.
There is no need to quote find or replace strings, replace: Darty Ai is the same as replace: "Darty Ai".
To remove the find words, set replace to "", '' or ``, leaving replace blank will not work.
You can however set the default value to "" by entering replace: "" in the property cell, bank cells will then cause the template string to be removed.

To replace a text frame with the contents of a file use the Place method.

replaceEscaped

replaceEscaped lets you type escaped characters into the replacement text instead of pasting the character itself. When the value is parsed, supported escape sequences are converted before the replacement text is applied. replaceJS is a synonym for replaceEscaped and can be used interchangeably.

Use it when you need line breaks, tabs, Unicode symbols, emoji, or invisible spacing characters in a text replacement.

Supported escape forms:

• \n, \u000A, \x0A, \u{A}: forced new line ⌟
• \r, \u000D, \x0D, \u{D}: carriage return ¶
• \t: tab
• \s: regular space
• \uXXXX: a 4-digit Unicode value
• \xXX: a 2-digit hex value
• \u{...}: a full Unicode code point, useful for symbols and emoji

Examples:

• Row 1\nRow 2: inserts a forced new line between Row 1 and Row 2
• Row 1\u000ARow 2: same result as \n
• Title\rSubtitle: inserts a carriage return
• Column 1\tColumn 2: inserts a tab
• Hello\sWorld: inserts a normal space
• Copyright \u00A9 2026: becomes Copyright © 2026
• Keep\u00A0Together: inserts a non-breaking space
• Arrow \u2192: becomes Arrow →
• Smile \u{1F600}: becomes Smile 😀
• A\x26B: becomes A&B

Literal backslashes:

• \\n stays as the literal characters \n
• \\u00A0 stays as the literal characters \u00A0
• Unsupported escapes such as \q are left as \q

Text Attributes

The following flat spreadsheet properties can be set.

find, grep / regex, flags, mode, replace, replaceEscaped / replaceJS, tagSearch, allText, autoLeading,
baselineOption / position, baselineShift, charStyle / characterStyle, characterDirection / charDirection,
clearCharacterOverrides, clearParagraphOverrides, clearOverridesOfWholeParagraph, color / fillColor, composer,
everyLineComposer, fillSwatch / swatch, firstLineIndent, fittingMethod, fitTopLines, font / fontFamily,
fontName, fontStyle / style, fontSize, justification, kerningType, language, leading, leftToRight,
lines, minFontSize, maxFontSize, overprintFill, overprintStroke, paraStyle / paragraphStyle,
paragraphDirection / paraDirection, rotation, strikeThrough, storyDirection, strokeColor, strokeSwatch,
strokeJoin, strokeWidth, tracking, underline

Styles and Overrides

You can apply paragraph and character styles using the paraStyle / paragraphStyle and charStyle / characterStyle properties.
By default overrides will not be removed.
Use the clearCharacterOverrides and clearParagraphOverrides properties to clear the paragraph and character styles overrides of the text being targeted.
Use the clearOverridesOfWholeParagraph property to clear both the paragraph and character styles overrides of the entire paragraph.

Sample Spreadsheet and Screenshots

Compare each row in the spreadsheet below with its associated screenshot below. The text frame is tagged 'details' The font has been applied to the entire text frame, the other properties have been set to the individual finds, note the * in the top tagSearch row

Fitting Methods

The fittingMethod property changes the font size or the text frames height to fit a frame's contents.

With it you can automatically:

• Decrease the font size to make sure that text does not overflow.
• Increase the frame height to make sure that text does not overflow.
• As much as possible, fill the frame with it's contents by increasing or decreasing the font sizes.
• Make a paragraph fill the text frame width.

The following values can be used: shrinkText, fitFrame, fitText and none.

You can specify specific frames to fit by using a tagSearch, otherwise set the tagSearch to * and all frames will be processed.
If you use the find property then only the paragraph containing the search string will be fitted unless you set the allText property to true.

fittingMethod works on text on paths (other than the fitFrame option) and in area text frames that have not been set to auto size, it does not work on point frames or area frame that have been set to auto size.

• shrinkText shrinks the font sizes of overflowing frames so that they no longer overflow.
• fitFrame will increase or decrease the height of the text frame so that the frames entire contents fits in it.
• fitText resizes the fonts to, as much as possible, fill the entire frame with it's contents.
  If you use the find property to specify specific text then by default the paragraph containing that text will be fitted to the width of the text frame.
  If you set the allText property to true, the entire contents of the frame will be fitted to the frame in the same way it does when using the tagSearch property.

Note: You can an "Overset Text Fitting" option on the export tab to apply shrinkText and fitFrame to all texts in the document

Font Min and Max

Set minFontSize and maxFontSize when using fitText or shrinkText
(native dispatch names fitToFrame and shrinkToFrame). By default, Darty-Ai
clamps fitted sizes to these bounds. A minimum can leave text overset; limits
also take precedence over the starting size when shrinking. Mixed font sizes
and leading remain proportional where possible. If both bounds cannot preserve
the ratio, the largest runs are capped and the smaller runs raised to the minimum.

The boolean clampTextSize defaults to true. Set it to false
to restore pre-fitting font sizes when a fit exceeds a limit. Replacement content
and other formatting changes remain applied. The Clamp Text Size checkbox is on by default in the Text tool. Builder
uses a tri-state: Unset uses the default, On writes true, and Off writes false.
Tables uses a tri-state to preserve inherited settings.

Font Size Warning controls the message independently: Unset uses the
Text default (Warn), None suppresses the limit message, Warn reports a
warning, and Error reports an error. In the API use fontSizeWarning with
"none", "warn", or "error"; omitted, "", and "unset" use the default.
Actual fitting failures remain errors. Text error reporting does not undo the fit.
These font-size controls do not change justification-only or frame-height fitting.

For example, retain the original size silently when a fit is outside the limits:

dispatch("com.darty.event.text", {
  tagSearch: "caption",
  fittingMethod: "shrinkToFrame",
  minFontSize: 8,
  maxFontSize: 24,
  clampTextSize: false,
  fontSizeWarning: "none"
});

Compare each row in the spreadsheet below with its associated screenshot below. The text frame is tagged 'details' The font has been applied to the entire text frame, the other properties have been set to the individual finds, note the * in the top tagSearch row

Text-Direction & Composer Features

Darty-Ai provides fine-grained control over text direction,
essential for accurate typesetting in Arabic, Hebrew, and similar right-to-left (RTL) languages.
Middle Eastern, Chinese, Japanese, and other language-specific typographic features can also be
applied using paragraph and/or character styles — allowing full control over font behavior, punctuation, alignment, and more.

1. Composer
   Governs how the layout engine handles character flow, line breaks, and justification in this direction (rtl/ltr) using a particular composer.

2. Story Direction
   Sets the base writing direction for the whole story (the entire continuous text flow).
   This is the “default” direction that new paragraphs and characters will inherit from.

3. Paragraph Direction
   Overrides the story direction for that one paragraph.
   Useful if you have an RTL story but need an LTR heading in the middle, or vice versa.

4. Character Direction
   Overrides paragraph direction for specific characters or spans.
   The default option here usually means “follow the paragraph/story direction.”

Language

The language property can be used to set the language of text.
This will tell the spell-checker to check the text in the correct language.

The valid values are:

• The values you see in Adobe's (English UI's) character panel, for example English: UK, English: US^*, Norwegian: Bokmal, German: 2006 Reform, French.
• The values without the specific locale, will use the more commonly used locale, for example English will set English: US (Even in the UK), German will set German: 2006 Reform because that is currently more commonly used.
• The ISO 639-1, 2 digit language code , for example en, fr, de
• The ISO 639-1, 2 digit language code combined with the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 Country codes, casing, spacing, and use of _ and - are flexible, for example en-US, en_US, frfr, frca
• The The ISO 639-2, 3 digit language code

Note: Different fonts support different sets of languages. Some languages could be unavailable because they aren't supported by a particular font.

¹ Casing, spacing, and use of : are flexible.
² Casing is flexible.
³ Casing, spacing, and use of _ and - are flexible
⁴ Alterative code
^* We will allow for English: USA as well as English: US in our next release 😊.
We will add languages as per demand and funding 💰.

Text Properties

Markdown replacement

Use Parse Markdown in the Text editor to insert formatted replacement copy. For a new sheet, use replace plus parseMarkdown:true; a markdown property always parses its value.

For example, replace a tagged text frame using mode 4 and New **weatherproof** finish. Strong and emphasized spans become styled text. Headings, lists, links, line breaks, and supported simple HTML are also parsed. A Markdown pipe table becomes tab-separated text here; use Tables for a managed Illustrator table.

Markdown replacement cannot be combined with regExFlag. Choose plain regex replacement when capture substitutions are required. The Markdown style all affects marked spans, not ordinary text; construct-specific mappings override it.

Area-text frame layout

These properties control the internal layout of an Illustrator area-text frame. They do not create a managed table. Omit a field to preserve its existing setting.

For a two-column text frame, set columnCount to 2, columnGutter to 6pt, and insetSpacing to 4pt. Test the longest record for overset after changing the available text area.