Folder Action for Distiller

Hi all,

long time reader first time poster… :wink:

I am very new to the applescripting game. What I would like to accomplish is this: A hot folder, ie. a folder with a folder action associated. When a user copies a .ps file into that folder, the script launches Distiller and distills a pdf.

Here’s a very basic sort of concept shell, I know it isn’t complete, but please bear with me


on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
	tell application "Acrobat Distiller 6.0.2"
		activate
		Distill destinationPath "/hello2.pdf" sourcePath "/hello.ps"
	end tell
end adding folder items to

I know the Distill action for Distiller requires POSIX paths, I’m wondering how I can set this up so Distiller gets the right path etc from whatever files are tossed into the directory.

I’m not quite familiar with how the folder actions work and treat the files that are contained.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, even if you just contribute a piece to the puzzle.

Thank you,

Phil.

Sounds like you might want to read the Acrobat Manual / Directions to simplify your life. This function is built into Distiller.

-N

Yes, Watched Folders is in fact a feature of Distiller. I would like to do things a little differently from Distiller though, in fact one thing I’ll probably want to do off the hop is duplicate incoming files and run each one through different Distiller presets. I would also like to avoid having Distiller open at all times.

If you do go the AS route, be aware that there is a bug in Distiller 6 that may reduce the process time of .ps files significantly when “distill” is called from AS. It’s supposed to be fixed in 7…

-N