Printing a File

I want to take an attachment from an email and move it into the Desktop and then check that it has some particular words. If it has Hazel will rename the file and move it into a particular folder. I've worked out how to do this. However I'd also like Hazel to be able to print the file, selecting a particular set up on my printer. I do have a Keyboard Maestro shortcut that prints an opened file in the way that I want. Is there any way of incorporating my KM shortcut in Hazel's actions?

There is no built-in print action but you can use Automator to do the printing.

If the files are PDFs, then you can use the `lpr` command, which will allow you to use various options as well. That's probably your best plan.

If they are in other formats, you'd need to look at seeing if you can convert it to PDF and then send that to `lpr`.

The only other way I know how to do it. Automator will let you send documents to a specific printer, but won't let you specify options for them.

luomat wrote:If the files are PDFs, then you can use the `lpr` command, which will allow you to use various options as well. That's probably your best plan.

My document is a PDF one. I don't recognise the "lpr" command - where is it available and how do I call it?

Aha! Well, I'm glad that we should be able to find a solution for you.

`lpr` is a command-line tool, which means that the easiest way to find it is to launch the Terminal.app (located in the /Applications/Utilities/ folder) and type `man lpr` (without the backticks).

Let's say that you had a file called "My Resume.pdf" on your Desktop and you wanted to print it.

You could go into Terminal.app and type:

lpr ~/Desktop/"My Resume.pdf"

and it would print it on the default printer.

If you have more than one printer, or if you want to specify different options than the default, that can be done, although it does get tricker.

Here is how you find the "Printer Name" that `lpr` needs. First go to System Preferences, then "Printers and Scanners" and select your printer.

Then click on the "Options & Supplies" button (shown above). That will open the window below:

The "Device Name" is what you are looking for. Note that lack of spaces (it uses '_' instead).

If I wanted to specify that printer, I would need to add `-P` (not `-p`) and then the "Device Name" so it would look like this:

lpr -P 'Kyocera_TASKalfa_2552ci' ~/Desktop/"My Resume.pdf"

I can see what other options I can use with `lpr` by using `lpoptions`.

This time I need to use a lowercase "L" and a lowercase "p" (unlike `lpr` which wanted an uppercase P) like this:

lpoptions -l -p 'Kyocera_TASKalfa_2552ci'

Those options tend to be different for different models of printers, so you'll have to figure out what the option is called if you want to specify things like black & white vs color or two-sided or not.

If you have questions, feel free to post a followup here. I'm tracking this thread so I should see it and will do my best to respond in a day or so (possibly sooner).

Many thanks for that. So I could use run an embedded script from Hazel on the lines you suggest but how would I pass the file name from Hazel?

Yes, you would use a shell script. The filename gets replaced with "$1" so instead of

lpr ~/Desktop/My\ Resume.pdf

you could use

lpr "$1"

(basically put "$1" -- including the quotation marks -- at the end of the line with `lpr` and any arguments that you add.)

That's great, many thanks. I'm new to Hazel and wasn't sure how it passed items to scripts. I was intending to get Hazel to open the file first before I ran the embedded shell script. I'll give this a try and see how it goes.

I was intending to get Hazel to open the file first before I ran the embedded shell script.

Well, I tend to be a bit of a command-line nerd, so I solve a lot of problems that way, but I understand that not everyone is as comfortable in Terminal as I am.

That being said, if you can learn some shell commands as you go along, you can do some powerful things.

For example, if you wanted to look at a PDF before you printed it, you could do something like this:

Code: Select all: open -n -W -a Preview "$1" lpr "$1"

which will open the file (represented by "$1") in the Preview app (-a), and will wait (-W) until the Preview app quits before it prints the file.

The "-n" says "If Preview.app is already running, start a NEW version of Preview app just for this file" and when THAT version of Preview quits is when the `lpr` command will run.

Well, I tend to be a bit of a command-line nerd, so I solve a lot of problems that way, but I understand that not everyone is as comfortable in Terminal as I am.

I have used Terminal from time to time but am not very proficient in it's use!

I'm having some bother just with the printing part. If I open Terminal and use lpr (filename) it works OK so the lpr command does work. However it's not working in the embedded script. It seems that the problem is that the file I'm trying to print has spaces in its name. When I read the debug file the filename passed to lpr is cut short before the first space.

For example the file I'm trying to process has a name like" P1234 0694L EDI.pdf". I look for a file that has "0694L EDI" in its name and it picks up this one. I'm just using the simple script "lpr $1" and what Hazel seems to be passing to this script is just P1234 so the script fails.

How do I ensure that the whole filename and extension is passed to the embedded script?

Hrm…

try this:

Code: Select all: #!/bin/zsh -f /usr/bin/lpr "${1}" exit 0

and see if that helps. Sometimes `"$1"` seems like it should be enough, but `"${1}"` should definitely be enough.

(Then again, irritations like this are while I still use '-' instead of spaces in filenames, but that's me. I realize the rest of the world isn't broken the way I am :-)

Many thanks, that worked fine.