Applescript or workflow to extract text from PDF and rename PDF with the results

1. If I wanted to extend the regex to include extra characters where possible, i.e. to match HB-123456_E what would I use? I have tried "HB-\S*" which seems to work OK in Automator for matching everything upto the first space.

To match from HB-to _ and space: "HB-.*_[:space:]"

To match from HB- to the end of that line: "HB-.*$"

To match from HB-to _ and any char : "HB-.*_[A-Za-z]"

To match from HB- to _ and any char or digit : "HB-.*_[A-Za-z0-9]"

See: http://www.addedbytes.com/download/regular-expressions-cheat-sheet-v2/png

Instead of \S try [^ ]

page.string.to_s =~ /HB-.._[^ ]*/

Oh wait, it's Applescript, you need to escape the \

page.string.to_s =~ /HB-.._\\S*/

What a royal pain that AppleScript escaping is too.😠

Hello

Here's a revised version crafted for an Automator Run Shell Script action, which can be used to create an Automator Folder Action.

To use this, create new Automator Folder Action with Run Shell Script Action set as follows:

Shell = /bin/bash

Pass input = as arguments

Contents = code as listed below

Notes on script.

* The output directory is hard-coded in script which is currently set to ~/Desktop/testout.

* When used as an Automator Folder Action attached to a watcher folder A, this script will process each pdf file added to A and then move it to done directory named Done in A. It will create A/Done directory if not present. (The directory A is obtained as the parent directory of the first item in the argument list, which is equal to the watched folder when used as Folder Action. But if not used as Folder Action, this logic would be inappropriate and done directory would be better hard-coded in script.)

* It only processes *.pdf files and leave others alone.

* It will create log file named YYYY-MM-DD_log.txt in done directory.

* In my experiences, Folder Action is non-deterministic and unreliable. It is often very slow to be triggered and can even fail to be fired. It is one of the reasons I implemented detailed logging in this script.

Hope this may help,

H

#!/bin/bash
# 
#     for Run Shell Script Action in Automator Folder Action
#         input  = pdf files
#         output = none
# 
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby -w <<'EOF' - "$@"
require 'FileUtils'
require 'osx/cocoa'
include OSX
require_framework 'PDFKit'

outdir = File.expand_path('~/Desktop/testout')          # destination directory where resulting pdfs are saved
donedir = File.dirname(ARGV[0]) + '/Done'               # done directory where done files are moved
logf = "#{donedir}/#{Time.now.strftime('%F_log.txt')}"  # log file named after YYYY-MM-DD_log.txt is created in done directory

def log(logf, s)
    File.open(logf, 'a') do |a|
        a.print "%-26s%s\n" % [Time.now.strftime('%F %T%z'), s]
    end
end

# 
#     create outdir, donedir if not present
#     
[outdir, donedir].each do |d|
    d = File.readlink(d) if File.symlink?(d)
    FileUtils.mkdir_p d unless File.exists?(d)
    raise RuntimeError, "#{d}: Not a directory." unless File.directory?(d)
end

# 
#     process each argument
# 
ARGV.select {|f| f =~ /\.pdf$/i }.each do |f|
    url = NSURL.fileURLWithPath(f)
    doc = PDFDocument.alloc.initWithURL(url)
    path = doc.documentURL.path
    pcnt = doc.pageCount
    k = 0
    (0 .. (pcnt - 1)).each do |i|
        page = doc.pageAtIndex(i)
        page.string.to_s =~ /HB-.._\S+/
        name = $&
        unless name
            log(logf, "# Skipped page #{i + 1} of #{path}: No matching string.")
            next # ignore this page
        end
        doc1 = PDFDocument.alloc.initWithData(page.dataRepresentation) # doc for this page
        unless doc1.writeToFile("#{outdir}/#{name}.pdf")
            log(logf, "# Failed to save page #{i + 1} of #{path}")
        else
            k += 1
            log(logf, "Saved page #{i + 1} of #{path} as #{outdir}/#{name}.pdf")
        end
    end
    log(logf, "Extracted #{k} out of #{pcnt} page(s) of #{path}")
    FileUtils.mv(f, donedir)
    log(logf, "Moved #{path} -> #{donedir}/#{File.basename(path)}\n")
end
EOF

This is a great script, Hiroto. I have the exact same need as Phillip except I need the script to keep the pdf(s) intact when renaming them rather than split it up into individual pages (using the extracted text only from page 1). What would need to change to accomplish this? Thanks in advance.

Applescript?

Just use display dialog:

set searchText to text returned of (display dialog "Enter Search Text" default answer "")