Hi Darcy, You can make an automator workflow to turn a TextEdit document into an AAC file that appears in the Audiobooks section of your iTunes library, but instead of using Sound Studio, do this in iTunes and then use the MakeBookmarkable AppleScript from Doug's AppleScripts for iTunes. Renaming your file extension from .m4a to .m4b won't do this on a Mac -- it only works for iTunes on a PC, because Windows has no information about the file type and how it was created except through the file extension. On a Mac you have to identify the type as "m4b" to Finder through the AppleScript.
You want to go to: http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=makebookmarkable The AppleScripts for iTunes web site is not particularly easy to navigate with VoiceOver because of the many links on each page. I suggest that you use either the item chooser menu or the link chooser menu to first go to the "printer-friendly" link and then, when the print menu comes up after you select this link, send the printer-friendly output either to Preview or save it to a PDF file to view. You'll be able to read through a list of the AppleScripts on that page along with the descriptions. To retrieve an AppleScript you're interested in, use item chooser to select the name of the AppleScript that you want using the name you read in Preview, such as "Make Bookmarkable v.2.1". If you use grouping (I do) you have to stop interacting once you get to the selection so that you're working with the grouped elements, then VO-keys down arrow to the group that includes the download link for that AppleScript, interact, select and start the download. You'll get a popup window telling you that the program is about to start downloading. (In the list of Windows, this will have a name like "Just a Minute"), and it will also tell you that this is donationware. (These AppleScripts are really useful, so I have contributed via PayPal). Depending on when the scripts were written you may get different download delivery formats -- the old ones are .zip files and the newer one are .dmg files, so you'll have to say Yes that you want the download to continue. The new AppleScripts come with an installer, but you'd have to drag and drop the icons for the AppleScript and the RTF file documenting it over to the Installer icon to use it. (There are three icons in the .dmg window: the AppleScript, an RTF documentation folder for the AppleScript, and the Installer.) OK, it's possible to do with VoiceOver, by selecting the Installer icon and reading its screen position, then selecting the AppleScript and RTF file, moving the mouse cursor there, locking the VO cursor, then holding down the trackpad or mouse key and starting to drag these to the right, using the F5 key to monitor your progress until your reach the Installer icon -- but it's really not worth it. Just copy the AppleScript and its RTF documentation file into your Library/iTunes/Scripts folder. If this is the first time you're using AppleScripts in iTunes you'll have to create the Scripts folder in the Library/iTunes folder under your account. This is described in the RTF documentation file, so you can just read it if you've forgotten to create the Scripts folder, or if you can't remember where to put these files. The next time you start up iTunes, you'll have an extra menu for AppleScript on your menu bar at the end of (to the right of) all the regular iTunes menu bar entries, and just before the Help menu. This works like any other menu option -- you select a track or group of AAC tracks in your Music library, and choose this menu option from the AppleScripts menu, that I'm told you can hear announced in Leopard. (If you're using Tiger, the menu is that silent spot just before the help, although if you use VisioVoice instead of VoiceOver you should hear something). You get a popup that tells you that the script is going to try to make the file work with the iTunes Bookmark feature; just carriage return to proceed, or else go to the cancel button. You get another popup telling you it's Done; carriage return to dismiss. The track should disappear from Music and reappear in Audiobooks under your Source list. If you check the file extension (Command+R to view it in Finder), it should now be .m4b. If you do Get Info before and after, you'll find that the description of Kind: on the Summary tab has changed from AAC Audio file to Protected AAC Audio File. (This has nothing to do with DRM, or your ability to play or edit this file. There's a Make UN-Bookmarkable AppleScript that can change this back if you need to. That AppleScript cannot remove DRM on books you purchase from the iTunes Store.) Remember to tidy up by closing all those windows and ejecting the .dmg file under Finder, then sending it to the trash. Use the ability of Automator to run AppleScripts to put this into your work flow. You can also assign the AppleScripts to keyboard shortcuts using System Preferences (Keyboard & Mouse, under the Keyboard Shortcuts page), but you have to do this with your application (iTunes) closed. Darcy, you'll find a number of AppleScripts you may want to try at the AppleScripts for iTunes site. Look at the bottom of the Missing Menu Commands page (reachable from the mmc link) for some of more helpful ones that aren't already described on the pages where Make Bookmarkable is listed. If you get into this, there are a lot of new tricky technical details. Under Leopard with the latest version of iTunes and QuickTime, iTunes changed the default format that it uses to encode AAC files. This hits anyone using the latest QuickTime, and by default you have the latest QuickTime with Leopard. It makes a difference, because one of the neat options is to join AAC files together and put Chapter markers at the joins, so you can navigate the joined files like audiobooks from iTunes or from Audible.com. But that only works (at present) for the old encoding. That's why there's a "Rip AAC Old School" AppleScript that's been newly added. Hope this helps, Cheers, Esther On Dec 06, 2007, at 07:11PM, Darcy Burnard wrote: >Hi. There is also an itunes action that will convert to different >formats. However, it imports the file which isn't what I want. I >want to be able to rename the file before I import, so it goes in to >books. >Darcy > >On 7-Dec-07, at 12:06 AM, Josh de Lioncourt wrote: > >> >> If you combine the Automator script with an AppleScript, you could >> probably do this. iTunes has an AppleScript function to convert, >> but I've never used it. Let me know if you get this all working. >> >> Josh de Lioncourt >> [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >> ...my other mail provider is an owl... >> >> >> >> On 6 Dec, 2007, at 8:59 PM, Darcy Burnard wrote: >> >>> Hi everyone. I wanted to try an expand the automator workflow that >>> gets the currently open text edit document and converts it in to an >>> audio file. Here's what I wanted it to do. Once the aiff file was >>> created, it would then be opened in sound studio. The file would >>> then be saved as an aac file with a .m4a extension. The next >>> action would rename the file and change its extension to .m4b. >>> Finally, the file would get imported in to itunes. I wanted to >>> change the extension to m4b so that itunes would place it in the >>> audio books section, rather then in music. >>> The part that didn't work was the sound studio action to save the >>> file as an aac file. What it did was it saved the file as an aiff >>> again, but it threw in an m4a extension in the middle. So it was >>> something like audio.m4a.aiff. So either I'm doing something >>> wrong, or that automator action doesn't work properly. >>> I did a google search, and I found some other automator actions you >>> could get that would convert audio files. It appears though that >>> they require quicktime pro. I'm not apposed to buying quicktime >>> pro, but I'm not sure if I'd use it for anything else. >>> Anyway, since we've been talking about automator quite a bit >>> lately, I thought some of you might be interested in what I've been >>> trying to accomplish with it. >>> Darcy >>> > > >
