Re: **Print To PDF**
Re: **Print To PDF**
- Subject: Re: **Print To PDF**
- From: JJ <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 09 May 2001 09:09:22 +0200
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We have a customer who wants to automate the creation of PDFs from
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applications such as Quark, Freehand, Illustrator and Photoshop.
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He would like his operators to be able to dump the files into a hot folder
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which would be checked by an applescript running on a separate machine. The
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script would then open the file within the relevant application and either
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print it to the PDFWriter or as a postscript file to be automatically
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distilled.
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Has anybody else implemented something similar and could pass on some tips,
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gotchas, requirements etc...
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Cheers.
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Kev
--
That's just that I did some months ago. It would be so long (I could attach
you some examples) post the script I used, but I'll briefly explain that you
could do.
Your "separate machine" should be an appletalck volume (I think). Good.
The operator sends a mail to "separate machine" with subject
"APPLETALK_VOLUME:CONTAINER_FOLDER:FILE_TO_PRINT" and body (e.g.) "Good
morning. Please, print this freehand document".
The "separate machine"'s mail client (Outlook or Entourage, preferred),
reads the message (message filtered through mail rules) and take message's
body as an alias. Then (new rule) mounts "APPLETALK_VOLUME" and tell an
applet "ignoring application responses" to activate (in order to process the
document in freehand, app's name included in message's body). Optionally,
choose the required printer. (You should make a rule for every app
freehand, quark, etc.)
This applet prints the document * (read below).
An action-attached opened folder prints pdf (if a postscript was
required).
Easy, long.
* It appears to be a big work, so I'd recommend you to use third-party
products. These are "Default Folder 3.1-higher" and/or his osax
"SetFileDialogFolder" and "Prefab Player".
You could, too, put your files in a idle-checked "hot folder", but you
should fall in trouble like:
- The location change for a quark's document (it was allocated in other
machine) should cart "missing images" and make tedious the process.
- It could be difficult examining the document processing requirements
(high-low resolution, postscript or pdf, etc.). Deppending on operator's
intellectual capacity, you could symbolize the settings with labels, file
comments, etc.
But you know better your customer needs.
Bye.
JJ