AppleScript Newbie: The Finder & Fonts
AppleScript Newbie: The Finder & Fonts
- Subject: AppleScript Newbie: The Finder & Fonts
- From: Jim <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 11:51:07 -0500
I'm a very inexperienced AppleScripter but I have this lofty idea to
use AppleScript to build a solution for printing specimen sheets of my
Font Library. (I've tried every font manager/font viewer/cataloger
"solution" out there for OS X and they all seem to fall short in their
own way).
I have found some example scripts I can customize but they only work on
"currently installed" fonts…and with a huge (maybe 6,000+!!) font
library this is just not workable. My idea is to build a script that
will examine a huge folder of fonts, break them down into alphabetical
order by menu name in batches of 24 at a time, install them, then
generate a 1 specimen page for each "batch".
For clarity I've broken the steps down as follows:
1) Examine a folder of uninstalled fonts.
2) Activate fonts (alphabetically by menu name) from the folder in
groups of 24 (24 = how many I want on each specimen page)
3) Generate (in inDesign) 1 page of a specimen book from the installed
fonts in step 2
4) Convert the text of the generated page to outlines in inDesign (so
that the first round of fonts can be uninstalled/deactivated)
5) Deactivate the 24 fonts previously activated
6) Repeat with the next 24 fonts, generating a second specimen page in
the inDesign document, and so on.
What still remains a mystery to me (even after EXTENSIVE Googleing) is
identifying and activating the fonts. At the moment I have three basic
questions:
1) Can the font install/activation process even be accomplished by
scripting the Finder alone? Or do I need to script say, Font Reserve?
2) I am assuming "all I need to do" is identify and sort the fonts in
the chosen folder and then move them in an out of the "~/Library/Fonts"
folder in order to activate and deactivate them. Is this misguided?
Will I need to quit and re-launch inDesign for the fonts to be
recognized after "new fonts" are "installed" in this manner?
3) Is there a more specific way to identify font files in the Finder
beyond the FFIL file type? I am anticipating a need to identify the
various "font types" in order to test, for instance, that A PS Printer
Font has it's associated Screen Font (It also would be useful to report
this info on the spec sheet (ie: font is PostScript/TrueType/dfont,
etc). Is this possible?
THANK YOU for any and all input on this!!!
jim
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Applescript-users mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
This email sent to email@hidden