Script to drag and drop files onto an open dialog box in Acrobat

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Hi all,

I’m having to work on a few hundred files, making pdfs then combining two at a time to make a new, single, pdf. I’m using Acrobat Professional for this and have the following script already:

on run {input, parameters}
	
	try
	tell application "Finder" to set theName to name of item 1 of (get selection)
	set the clipboard to theName
end try
tell application "Adobe Acrobat Pro"
	activate
end tell

tell application "System Events"
	tell process "Acrobat"
		tell menu bar 1
			tell menu bar item "File"
				tell menu "File"
					tell menu item "Combine"
						tell menu "Combine"
							click menu item "Merge Files into a Single PDF..."
						end tell
					end tell
				end tell
			end tell
		end tell
	end tell
end tell
	
	return input
end run

I select the first PDF, run the script using Automator (from a contextual menu), then wait for the Combine PDFs dialog box to open, and select the second pdf, then drag and drop both files into this dialog box.

Can I amend this script so that any selected files are automatically dragged from the finder into the Acrobat dialog box?

Any help much appreciated.

Osmo

#2

Rather than trying to drag files onto an open dialog box it might be easier to get Acrobat to do it. I have done this fairly recently to create pdfs with several hundred pages from separate ones.

Here’s a bit of a start with scripting Acrobat to do it.:-

insert pages document activeDoc after thisPage from document thisName starting with 1 number of pages 1

It’s just a question of looping through the pdfs and opening the two that need to be combined.

Nick

P.S. If you’re feeling a little adventurous there’s also Acrobat Javascript, have a look through the Acrobat Javascript Reference:-

this.insertPages ({
nPage: (this.numPages - 1), // was -1
cPath: “/This HD/Path/to/files/”, nStart: 0
});

#3

Many thanks, Nick, for helping with this. Unfortunately, my scripting skills are very amateurish and I can’t get your scriplet to work with mine, nor on its own: it won’t compile. Do I need to modify it somehow?

#4

Can anyone help me with this? I’m completely stuck. Automator’s combine pdfs function corrupts the fonts in my pdfs so I have to use Acrobat’s combine feature.

How do I get Nick’s script incorporated into mine?

Thanks

#5

Hi Osmosis, a quick couple of questions.

When you create the pdfs are they sequentially numbered or something like that?
How do you know which two pdfs go together?

Thanks,
Nick

#6

They’re sequential in terms of name, but not number. I choose the two PDFs that go together from a folder in the Finder. Basically, think of two Photoshop files that are in a folder. PDFs are made from these so the folder now has four files in it. Two PSDs, two PDFs. I select just the PDFs and drag them into Acrobat.

I then do this for the other PDFs in a bunch of other folders.

Cheers