Automate entry of PDFs into databse

[dkemme]

Both faxing and scanning result in creation of PDFs that we currently copy the image in Preview and then paste into a container in a new record. I would love the create an applescript to automate this process but Preview is not applescriptable. Ideally the script would open the PDF in a program and for each page, copy the image to the clipboard and run a script in Filemaker. I know how to do the last part, but do not know of a program that will accomplish the first part. TIA

[Fenton]

There is a small shareware program PDFpen ($30) which does this. http://www.pdfpen.com

There is an AppleScript included for splitting a PDF into its multiple pages,* which could then be imported directly by FileMaker, using Import Folder. There would probably be other ways to do it; as you say, copy/paste.

*It's inside the application's package, so "Show Contents." It's inside a Scripts folder, inside the Resources folder (along with everything else). Awkward, yes, but it does have its own Scripts menu, which is handy. They should have included a stand-along applet to reveal that folder.

You can also set a PDF directly into a container field with AppleScript, if you first use the syntax "as file specification" to get the file (thanks to BruceR for that). I'm not sure exactly what quality you get (ie., how it prints).

[P.S. The same company makes the PageSender fax software, which has good reviews, so you could possibly combine that part of it.

P.S.S. If you hadn't double-posted, I would have known that you already HAVE PageSender. I'm surprised you didn't know about PDFpen; but I guess PageSender is much more well known.

You should probably delete the post in the Fax forum; this is more of an AppleScript question. Most of us read the posts as a list, so posting a similar question in 2 forums is not a good idea; leads to 2 diverging threads with (horrors) redundant answers.]

[dkemme]

Sorry for the duplicate post, I was not sure where this best belonged. I see how PDFPen can split a multipage PDF into multiple single page PDFs, but do not see now I can select the entire page image to be pasted into a filemaker container. I will try set'g the single page PDF into a container field and see what quality I'm left with.

[Fenton]

There's a couple of ways. Basically, after splitting the "parent" PDF file into several "children," I would have the AppleScript put the children in their own folder; probably create the folder on the fly (so I'm sure it was empty to start with).

Then I would Loop through the files, switching the name of each to a fixed name. Call a FileMaker script to Insert Picture of the fixed name file, then delete that file and move on to the next.

Alternatively I guess you could have PDFpen open each, then copy/paste into FileMaker. It sound's simpler, but the other would probably be faster; copy/paste requires everything to be visible, which is slow and "flashy."

[dkemme]

After a bit of sniffing around, I found that Pagesender also saves each fax into a fold that has a PDF of complete fax and each page into its own TIFF, making this much easier. The TIFF files are renamed using AppleScript, the PDF removed and then import the whole folder of TIFF files into FM7 (FM5-6 does not like TIFFs).