1 The Automator workflow document. 2 The workflow input banner with controls set to accept PDF files selected in the Finder application. 3 The Watermark PDF Documents Automator action will render the specified watermark image into the PDF file passed as input to the action. The resulting watermarked document will be passed to the next action. Automator Action 'New PDF Contact Sheet' returns a blank page. I'm running into some bugs with Automator again. Seems like with each major OS update, things in Automator gets fixed while other things break. This time, the New PDF Contact Sheet action seems to have lost its functionality.
The “Render to Image Slide” Automator workflow is a PDF print plugin for printing documents from any application to a new slide in Keynote.
Let’s say you’re creating a presentation about Washington D.C. and you want to include a slide with a 3-D map highlighting famous historical landmarks, such as the Capitol Building, the White House, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials.
Wouldn’t it be useful to be able to print such a map from the Maps application directly to your presentation? Here’s how to create an Automator workflow to make this possible.
Creating the PDF Print Plugin
In Automator, create a new workflow and choose the PDF Print Plugin option from the template sheet, and add the following actions to the new workflow.
1 Render PDF Pages as Images • Add this action that renders the PDF file generated by the print architecture into a high-resolution image file. In the action view, set the image format to JPEG, the resolution to between 300 to 600 DPI, and the compression level to deliver the best quality image.
2 Move Finder Items • The result of the previous action is a JPEG image file placed within a special system folder used to temporarily contain items that are being used by the OS and applications. The next step is to move the created image to a user-accessible location like the Pictures folder. Add the Move Finder Items action to the workflow and set its destination folder to be the Pictures folder, and to replace any files that are named the same as the created image.
3 New Image Slide from File • Add this action to the end of the workflow and set its placement option to Scale to Fill. This action will create a new slide containing the rendered image, in the frontmost Keynote presentation.
Save and name the workflow. It will now be available from the PDF popup menu within any application’s print dialog.
DOWNLOAD an installer for the example workflow that will install the PDF print plugin into the PDF Services folder. Once installed, the workflow can be executed from the PDF popup menu within the standard print dialog.
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The “Copy Documents to Devices” action
The Copy Documents to Devices action is used to copy document files onto connected devices.
| Input: | ECID Identifiers for the connected devices which are to receive document files |
| Output: | ECID Identifiers for the connected devices that received document files |
| Parameters: | You can choose to identify the associated application by either: selecting it from the list of iOS apps residing on the host computer, or by entering the iOS application ID in a text field. |
The Action View
Because of the security architecture of iOS devices, documents must be associated with specific applications. The “Copy Documents to Devices” action offers two methods for indicating the host application for the listed documents. This choice is indicated by selecting one of two options from the popup menu 1 at the top of the action view: (⬇ see below )
(⬆ see above ) If you’ve chosen to associate the documents to an iOS app whose file is on the host computer 1 then select the app from the second popup list of applications 2 which can be refreshed by click the Update button 3 to the right of popup menu.
Create a list document files 5 to be transfered to the connected devices by using the “Add” and “Remove” buttons 4 at the bottom of the action view.
(⬇ see below ) But if you’ve chosen to identify the associated application by its iOS ID 1 then enter the complete iOS application ID in the provided text field 2 :
New Pdf Contact Sheet Automator
TIP: Should you wish to transfer documents for more than one application, add other copies of this action to your workflow, and set their parameters accordingly.