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this is probably my most-used Hazel rule, and what convinced me to buy a license. it watches for any newly modified Pages documents and immediately creates a PDF copy using AppleScript. some important things to know about how this operates:

1. uses AppleScript and will open documents that are not already open. most of the time the rule applies to a document you have open and have just saved, so this isn't a big problem.
2. overwrites previous PDF copy in place without asking. if you want to keep a history of the PDF that you can roll back, i suggest running this within a folder that syncs to Dropbox.
3. apparently does not handle bitmap images well. this is a limitation in Pages for which i haven't found a workaround. due to a stupid bug, using a virtual printer instead of Pages' AppleScript conversion tool just doesn't work.
4. saves the PDF in the same folder with the same name, different extension. you can do renaming or re-filing by adding further actions.

that said, here's the rule…

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if all of the following conditions are met
    Kind is Pages Publication
    Date Last Modified is after Date Last Matched
do the following
    Run AppleScript [see below]
    Send Growl notification with pattern [file] PDF'd


…and script.

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tell application "Pages"
   open theFile
   set docName to name of front document
   -- Remove .pages extension.
   set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ".pages"
   -- Add .pdf extension.
   set docName to first text item of docName & ".pdf"
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
   -- Get folder that dropped file exists in.
   tell application "Finder"
      set sourceFolder to (container of theFile) as Unicode text
   end tell -- Finder
   -- Save file to folder that dropped file exists in.
   set docPathAndName to sourceFolder & docName
   save front document as "SLDocumentTypePDF" in docPathAndName
end tell


when you first implement this rule, if you don't want Pages to go nuts and open every document in the folder you apply this to and start spewing out a ton of PDFs, make sure that all of your Pages documents in that folder have an up-to-date Date Matched parameter. you can do that by running a dummy rule that does Ignore on all Pages Publications, and then turning the dummy rule off.

this script broke when i updated to iWork '13. i finally banged my head against a wall long enough to make the minor changes so it works once again!

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tell application "Pages"
   open theFile
   set theFront to front document
   set docName to name of theFront
   -- Remove .pages extension.
   set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ".pages"
   -- Add .pdf extension.
   set docName to first text item of docName & ".pdf"
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
   -- Get folder that dropped file exists in.
   tell application "Finder"
      set sourceFolder to (container of (theFile as alias)) as Unicode text
   end tell -- Finder
   -- Save file to folder that dropped file exists in.
   set docPathAndName to sourceFolder & docName
   export theFront to file docPathAndName as PDF
end tell

This is a F A N T A S T I C rule. Way to be for dreaming this masterpiece up! I am having one major issue with it though - when I run it, it outputs PDFs with single capital letters as their titles.

Also, I am curious if there is a way to cause this to delineate between pages '09 and pages '13 documents? Pages '13 has a tendency for messing with my old Page Layout files.

Does this still work? My documents get converted to [First letter of the doc].pdf (e.g., 'H.pdf'). Seeing ` set docName to first text item of docName & ".pdf"` I would guess that setting the delimiter to `.pages` no longer works?

Best, Oliver

Hi there,

thanks you for this workflow.

I made a little change in the applescript to get it working with Pages 5.5.2

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tell application "Pages"
   open theFile
   set theFront to front document
   set docName to name of theFront
   -- Remove .pages extension.
   set prevTIDs to AppleScript's text item delimiters
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ".pages"
   -- Add .pdf extension.
   set docName to docName & ".pdf"
   set AppleScript's text item delimiters to prevTIDs
   -- Get folder that dropped file exists in.
   tell application "Finder"
      set sourceFolder to (container of (theFile as alias)) as Unicode text
   end tell -- Finder
   -- Save file to folder that dropped file exists in.
   set docPathAndName to sourceFolder & docName
   export theFront to file docPathAndName as PDF
end tell

Cya

Does this still work? My documents get converted to [First letter of the doc].pdf (e.g., 'H.pdf'). Seeing ` set docName to first text item of docName & ".pdf"` I would guess that setting the delimiter to `.pages` no longer works?


Thanks for sharing this topic.

Is Pages still supporting AppleScript automation ? Whatever I tried it does not respond at all.
Are there alternatives out there to automate conversion from Pages to PDF and Word ?

2016-03-01 10:35:20.580 hazelworker[16439] Processing folder Facturen Uit (forced)
2016-03-01 10:35:22.724 hazelworker[16439] 2016002 Onkosten.pages: Rule Convert Pages to PDF matched.
2016-03-01 10:37:22.797 hazelworker[16439] [Error] AppleScript failed: Error executing AppleScript on file /Users/home/Documents/Firma/2016/Facturen Uit/2016002 Onkosten.pages.
2016-03-01 10:37:22.798 hazelworker[16439] OSAScript error: {
NSLocalizedDescription = "Pages got an error: AppleEvent timed out.";
NSLocalizedFailureReason = "AppleEvent timed out.";
OSAScriptErrorAppAddressKey = "<NSAppleEventDescriptor: [0x0,424424 \"Pages\"]>";
OSAScriptErrorAppNameKey = Pages;
OSAScriptErrorBriefMessageKey = "AppleEvent timed out.";
OSAScriptErrorMessageKey = "Pages got an error: AppleEvent timed out.";
OSAScriptErrorNumberKey = "-1712";
OSAScriptErrorRangeKey = "NSRange: {0, 0}";
}
2016-03-01 10:37:22.801 hazelworker[16439] Received abort event.

The script is not even trying to start Pages. And even if I try to start it manually before running the script it still fails with the same result.

My god these AppleScript things are bloody difficult to create. So little good documentation, such a bloated syntax.

I think Apple cut out a lot of AppleScript support at some point back when they were crippling iWork to make it more in line with their iOS equivalents. I was under the impression most of that was restored in more recent versions. You may want to double-check the version you are running.

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set _document to theFile

tell application "Finder"
   set _directory to get container of file _document
   
   set _documentName to name of _document
   if _documentName ends with ".pages" then ¬
      set _documentName to text 1 thru -7 of _documentName
   
   set _PDFName to _documentName & ".pdf"
   set _location to (_directory as string) & _PDFName
end tell

tell application "Pages"
   activate
   open _document
   
   with timeout of 1200 seconds
      export front document to file _location as PDF
   end timeout
   
   close front document
end tell


this worked for me

I an new to all of this and AppleScript - how do I use an AppleScript to create a rule in hazel? Can someone link me to a tutorial

beaucrosetto wrote:I an new to all of this and AppleScript - how do I use an AppleScript to create a rule in hazel? Can someone link me to a tutorial

Good question Beau, any tips for a newbie or links to some good tuts?