Folder actions, Automation - DocX to PDF

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Tchikyds Author

Level 1

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Folder actions, Automation - DocX to PDF

Hi Everyone,

I am wondering how to do this using the Mac Automator and folder Actions:

My Action: In a specific folder I edit an existing DocX and Save it.

The Automator automatically (I.e without any user action) will:

Detect that the document was changed.
Create a PDF Document with the same name as the original WordX document.
- If a PDF document already exists, then replace it without any user interaction.

I am using Word Version 16.XX

So far, I found some similar solutions, but they require a user to manually ask to convert the documents to PDF. This would be automatically done, without user interaction as quick as possible. I am aware of "Watching Folders" technique, I just can't make it work.

If you think it's not possible or there are other similar solutions please let me know!

Thank you in Advance :)

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on Jul 25, 2019 12:30 PM

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Answer 1

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,208 points

Jul 25, 2019 1:10 PM in response to Tchikyds

Do not edit the Word document in the drop folder location as the act of opening the Word document will trigger the folder action and conversion. Instead, save the final edited Word document into the drop folder. This will begin to accumulate both Word and PDF documents so you may want to define how you plan to clean as you go (e.g. move PDF and Word documents out of the drop folder).

I already have a Zsh shell script that was used by another user to convert 3000 WordPerfect files to Word .docx. It is a one-line change to switch it to .docx into PDF. It does require LibreOffice to be installed as it uses the headless command-line tool to silently do the conversion.

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Folder actions, Automation - DocX to PDF

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