Can automator gather files listed in an excel spreadsheet?

The way the script is written, it uses find with wildcards (so that if the excel file has "test", it will also copy files "test2", "test3", etc). find does not produce an error code if the file is not found, so there is no easy way to create an error report with find (perhaps someone else here knows how)

However, if you want to search for an exact match (and report an error if the file does not exist (in a file named "error.txt" on the Desktop) then

replace:

do shell script "find " & theDirectory & " -iname '" & theItem & "*' -exec cp {} " & theDestination & " \\;"

with:

try

do shell script "cp " & theDirectory & "/" & theItem & space & theDestination

on error

do shell script "echo " & theDirectory & "/" & theItem & " does not exist >> ~/Desktop/error.txt"

end try

This works for me....

set theDirectory to quoted form of POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "Select Search Directory")

set theDestination to quoted form of POSIX path of (choose folder with prompt "Select Directory to Copy Files")

tell application "Microsoft Excel"

tell active sheet

tell used range

set rc to count of rows

end tell

set theList to get value of range ("B1:B" & rc) as list

repeat with theItem in theList

if contents of theItem is not {""} then

do shell script "find " & theDirectory & " -iname '" & theItem & "*' -exec cp {} " & theDestination & " \\;"

end if

end repeat

end tell

end tell

But could you add back in...

do shell script "echo Files Not Found: > $HOME/Desktop/NotFound.txt"

thank you for your help.

ok, I replied there.

Tony, this is exactly what I was needing to do also, and it works like a charm! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge!!!

Your little script just saved my job. Im cring in my tears right now. Thank you, you are life saver!

Glad it helped.

(I'm surprised to see that this 4 year old thread is still being used 😉)