Automator and Printing

Start with http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2039384 and Introduction to Automator tutorial at http://automator.us/leopard/video/index.html

I know very little about printing but if you go to http://127.0.0.1:631/help/options.html in your web browser you'll get instructions for controlling CUPS from command line. in particular you can create various +printer instances+ with various option presets (like double-sided printing, layouts etc). you can then filter your documents by extension and feed them to lp with different printer instances specified based on extension using "run shell script" action. also, you might want to ask this in the printing forum.

Bone_Chaos wrote:
I still don't know how to incorporate that into Automator

that should be easy enough I would think.
first create some printer instances as that page describes for various file extensions like .txt .doc, .pdf etc.
then do something along these lines
1. get selected (or specified) finder items
3. run shell script (with input passed as arguments)
<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">


for f in "$@"
do
if [ `basename "$f"`==*.doc ]
then
lpr -P printername/docinstance
elif [ `basename "$f"`==*.pdf ]
then
lpr -P printername/pdfinstance
elif [ `basename "$f"`==*.txt ]
then
lpr -P printername/txtinstance
fi
done</pre>




or you can forget about printer instances altogether and use lpr -o and list all print options right in the shell script action. just use different options indifferent cases.

you don't replace it with anything. it's a unix command. the only things that need to be customized in this script are file extensions (I uses txt pdf and doc and printer names and printer instances names. you can also add more elif conditions if you have more different extensions to manage.

Bone_Chaos wrote:
OK ..
This is what I got and it does not work;

Get Specified Finder Items (Add, Remove)

Run Shell Script
Shell: /bin/bash Pass input: as arguments

for f in "$@"
do
if [ `basename "$f"`==*.doc ]
then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename
elif [ `basename "$f"`==*.pdf ]
then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename
elif [ `basename "$f"`==*.txt ]
then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename
fi
done

It says Workflow completed but nothing printed and nothing came up for me to choose the printing options...

Am I doing this wrong? Yea I think I am

yes, you are. first, did you create a printer instance called lpr for your printer? if not this will not work. and if you did create it you are using the same printer instance in all commands. what's the point of that? I thought the point was to use different presets for different file types so you want one prnter instance for each. also, in that case there is no need for -o option. you should put that in the printer instance setting or not use printer instances at all. you are doing both. lastly, or perhaps firstly, the syntax is wrong in a couple of places. your printer name has spaces so you should enclose it in quotation makrs. also, the word filename does not belong there. what should be provided there is the path to the file in question. I made a mistake too and forgot to put it in.sorry about that. so the shell script action should look like this

<pre style="
font-family: Monaco, 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-size: 10px;
margin: 0px;
padding: 5px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
width: 720px;
color: #000000;
background-color: #ADD8E6;
overflow: auto;"
title="this text can be pasted into the Script Editor">
for f in "$@"
do
if [ `basename "$f"`==*.doc ]
then
lpr -P "HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr" "$f"
elif [ `basename "$f"`==*.pdf ]
then
lpr -P "HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr" "$f"
elif [ `basename "$f"`==*.txt ]
then
lpr -P "HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr" "$f"
fi
done</pre>

First of all, when posting code snippits, wrap them in

...your code here...

Next, when using == you need to use double [[ ... ]]

And finally, there must be a space before and after the ==

While I do not know if the following is working code, or if anything was lost when it was posted without the

wrappers, the following is valid syntax

for f in "$@"
do
if [[ `basename "$f"` == *.doc ]]; then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename
elif [[ `basename "$f"` == *.pdf ]]; then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename
elif [[ `basename "$f"` == *.txt ]]; then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge filename
fi
done

For example, if filename is suppose to be the .txt, .pdf, .doc filename, then the code would most likely look like

for f in "$@"
do
if [[ `basename "$f"` == *.doc ]]; then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge "$f"
elif [[ `basename "$f"` == *.pdf ]]; then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge "$f"
elif [[ `basename "$f"` == *.txt ]]; then
lpr -P HP LaserJet P4014dn/lpr -o sides=two-sided-long-edge "$f"
fi
done
{code}