Printing to iphoto with record title

[Revuelta]

I am using a Filemaker database in order to create images from text fields (it's a "from text to image" process). I am creating the images using the "print to iphoto" option in the printing dialogue. Those images are exported to iphoto and from them to my ipod in order to create a kind of PowerPoint presentation.

The problem is that the photos so created have a very strange name ("dCxLmt", "QBI8Nf" and the like). I would like to create photos with a title/name that relates to the record or can derive from it (let's say from a field content or formula). Is it possible to do something like this using the "print to iphoto" menu?

Of course I can manually manipulate the photos' titles/names from iphoto, but I would like to automate the process from Filemaker.

Perhaps you can think of any other way to turn field text into photos making use of another technique while keeping control of the files/photos' names.

I have data bases with vocabulary and want to make the text of the words into photos, to import them to my ipod classic (as photos) and to study the photos as if they were flashcards. But it's necessary to control the name/title of the photos created from Filemaker since I have to create many photos from the same record: one for the word, another for the pronountiation, another for the translations, an so on.

Those presentations are great, but to create them is too time-consuming.

I would really appreciate any suggestion.

Revuelta

Edited December 1, 2009 by Guest

[Fenton]

I've looked into this a bit. Basically the process you're using now is an Automator "workflow", which is being run as a "PDF Service".

/Library/PDF Services/Save PDF to iPhoto.workflow/

It just has a couple of Automator actions. It generates those random names so there are not conflicts. However, using Automator to rename them to what you want is not so easy. Automator has lousy support, in my opinion for renaming files, other by certain defined routines.

AppleScript is a heck of a lot more flexible. And you can run an AppleScript as an Automator action. So what you would need to do is know the location of the iPhoto album those images went into, and rename them. Likely the only sane way to do that would be if they were the ONLY files in that album, since you have no idea what the files' names are to start with. It seems you can set the name of this album from Automator, and can use a "variable" to do so; and you can set that variable via AppleScript (so you can get it from a FileMaker field).

Kind of a PITA, but I believe it can be done, by mixing AppleScript into the workflow.

P.S. You can create a "PDF Services" folder in your own Home folder's Library folder. If you duplicate the Apple workflow, in order to modify it and preserve the original, then put the resulting file in the above folder, it will show up in the Print dialog, in the PDF drop-down. Gotta love Unix hierarchy -]

[Automator "variables" were added in Leopard, not there in Tiger. You would have to put these in a fixed album or new album in iPhoto.]

Edited December 6, 2009 by Guest