Indesign pdf export

[wobbie]

I’m new at scripting indesign and i’m trying to create a script to export a document as PDF but… i’m stuck, i don’t know what i’m doing wrong… can anyone help me out.

---

tell application “Finder”
activate
set work_file to choose file with prompt “Choose the document.”
set dest_file to make new file at desktop with properties {name:“test.pdf”}
set alias_file to dest_file as alias
tell application “InDesign 2.0.2”
open work_file
set my_doc to active document
set theDocPath to full name of document 1
export my_doc format “eBook” to file alias_file
end tell
end tell

---

SPECS
MAC OS 10.2.6 with indesign 2.0.2

[jonn8]

Um, no. There are a lot of things wrong with your code: there is no need to nest the tell statements for InDesign inside the Finder tell block; don’t tell the Finder to make a new file; you switch several times between references to document 1 in your InDesign code; and your basic syntax for the export is off. Try this code:

tell application “Finder”
activate
–this allows you to choose an InDesign document only:
set work_file to (choose file of type {“InDd”} with prompt “Choose an InDesign document to convert to PDF:”) as alias
–get the folder path that contains the file:
set the_container to (container of work_file) as string
–get the filename without the extension so we can build the name with the “pdf” extension
set the_name to name of work_file
set the_extension to name extension of work_file
if the_extension is not “” then set the_name to (text 1 thru ((length of the_name) - (length of the_extension) - 1) of the_name)
end tell

tell application “InDesign 2.0.2”
open work_file
tell document 1
–if you get an error, try “eBook” without the brackets
export format PDF type to (the_container & the_name & “.pdf”) using PDF export style “[eBook]” without showing options
close saving no
end tell
end tell

–this script was automatically tagged for
–color coded syntax by Script to Markup Code

Hope this helps,

Jon

[Chris_Moore]

Here’s a neat trick:

add a folder named “PDF Services” to ~/Library/ and on all print panels a little pdf icon gets added to all print dialogs. when you click it a pop up menu appears with a “save as pdf…” option. you can also add aliases of folders to the PDF Services folder and options will be added to the menu like “save as pdf to {folder name}”

not a script but it works with every app and you can just press command-p and a click