I’ve successfully created a PDF to Text service for finder, but I can’t find where Automator stores the saved service. I want to remove it from the finder context menu. Do you know where services are stored and is it just a matter of deleting it from wherever it is in order to remove it from the system?
> On Apr 1, 2015, at 3:48 PM, Barry Hadder <[email protected]> wrote: > > Automator is one of the coolest apps ever in that you can interactively build > things with it without any programming experience in most cases. Very > classically Apple. Oddly enough however, I don’t think they originally > developed it. I recall hearing somewhere that they acquired it some time in > the distant past. > > I’m looking in to creating an action that will open the current pdf page in > textedit. I think that is what we really need and I haven’t seen anything > currently available that fits the bill. So you see, you can also create your > own actions although that is fairly advanced. > > On Apr 1, 2015, at 2:18 PM, Chris Moore <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > You were correct! Once I hit enter on the action I was able to interact with > it and set the output options. > > This is far easier than performing a similar action with Adobe Acrobat Reader > in Windows. > > Chris >> On Apr 1, 2015, at 2:30 PM, Barry Hadder <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi, >> >> Sounds like you haven't added to your work flow. To add an action to a >> workflow, select it with up or down arrows and press enter. You can then >> interact with the workflow area and then interact with the action. >> When you interact with that action, there are radio buttons to choose the >> output format. >> >> On Apr 1, 2015, at 1:12 PM, Chris Moore <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi Barry, >> I followed your modified instructions to make a service. Your step 5 says >> to interact with the extract pdf text action to configure it to save it to >> txt or rtf. >> Once I select this action in the pdf table, I can’t figure out how to >> configure it. >> I’m new to automator, so you’ll have to bare with me. >> Chris >>> On Mar 31, 2015, at 10:38 PM, Barry Hadder <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> I would like to suggest a much simpler variation on my initial suggestion. >>> >>> In the workflow, Git rid of the applescript and get finder item actions, >>> change the input of the service to pdf file, and the application to Finder. >>> The only action you need is the extract pdf text. >>> >>> I wasn’t able to make this work at first, but I finally figured out that it >>> was due to the multi lingual pdf issue that I mentioned earlier. >>> So, if you prefer, you can just export a pdf to rtf within finder. >>> >>> >>> On Mar 31, 2015, at 8:24 PM, Barry Hadder <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> I don’t know of a way to select text in a pdf, but I can tell you how to >>> get all of the text into rtf or plain. >>> The easiest way is to create an Automator workflow like the following. >>> >>> 1. open Automator and choose the services template. >>> 2. Interact with the work flow area and set the service to have no input >>> and to only work with Preview. >>> 3. Add the following actions to the work flow: run apple script, get >>> specified finder items, and extract pdf text. You want them in that order. >>> 4. Interact with the run apple script action and enter the following in >>> the input field: >>> on run >>> tell application “Preview” >>> path of document of front window >>> end tell >>> end run >>> 5. Interact with the extract pdf text action and configure it to output >>> plain text or rtf as you prefer. >>> 6. Save it. >>> >>> That should get the job done. It should also show up in the services menu >>> of Preview. I’m sure you can think of ways to fine tune this idea to >>> better meet your needs. >>> Note that I have found that the extract pdf text action doesn’t seem to >>> work with multi lingual pdfs for some reason. >>> >>> >>> On Mar 31, 2015, at 4:10 PM, Chris Moore <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> The subject says it all. >>> When in the pdf viewer, how do I select text? I tried cmd+a which didn’t >>> do anything. >>> >>> The next question is how to add textedit to the services menu in pdf viewer? >>> >>> TIA >>> Chris >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >>> >>> Barry Hadder >>> [email protected] >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> Barry Hadder >>> [email protected] >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "MacVisionaries" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >>> email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> >> Barry Hadder >> [email protected] >> >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > Barry Hadder > [email protected] > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
