Automator Find and Replace Text issues

Question

Automator Find and Replace Text issues

Hi - I'm trying to do what should be a simple task in automator, but have had no luck after more than an hour, and I can't understand what I'm doing wrong. I download transaction history from my brokerage account, and I want to change how the data is formatted. As one example, the downloaded file will read "Bought to Open," which I want to change to "BTO."

I create a new Automator Service, and drop in a "Find and Replace Text" node. At the top the service receives selected text in any application, and I enter Bought to Open in the Find box, and BTO in the replace box. I save that service as BTO in automator, then go to the text file that has all the information, select all the text of the document, then control-click and select BTO from the drop down menu. I get an error which reads "Automator could not convert the input data to the desired type." Huh? There doesn't seem to be any relevant commands when I type "convert" in the search field for automator, nor does it seem logical that I would need to convert text at all in order to execute a simple find and replace. What am I doing wrong, or what am I missing? Thanks.

Posted on Aug 17, 2015 12:58 AM

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Answer 1

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,306 points

Aug 17, 2015 5:07 AM in response to Keith Huggins

I don't see a generic "Find and Replace Text," only one for Word Documents. In that action, you must pass it a com.microsoft.word.document.object, not plain text.

You might try installing this package of actions: http://automatorworld.com/archives/textedit-action-pack/

I have not used them, but the same thing applies. You must ensure you are passing it data that it expects.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,306 points

Aug 17, 2015 5:18 AM in response to Keith Huggins

Another way to do it would be to use the stream editor (sed) in a run shell script to do the replacements. You could pass the entire file to the script and have sed replace the strings.

You could create a list of sed commands that would do all of your editing at once.

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/09/unix-sed-tutorial-replace-text-inside-a-file -using-substitute-command/

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Answer 3

Aug 17, 2015 10:11 PM in response to Barney-15E

Now that you mention it, its icon was different from the others, and if I had a microscope, I guess I could have seen that it had a tiny W on it.

So that text action pack worked as expected, thanks. But I had to spend $15 to buy the full pack so it didn't give me a notice every time I ran the script. Not a big deal, but one would expect that that's such a basic action, it would have been included as one of the functions of the software. Anyway, thanks for your help!

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Answer 4

Aug 17, 2015 10:13 PM in response to Keith Huggins

Oh, and I accidentally downloaded a media player called Yeti because I clicked on the large green Download button at the bottom of the description, not realizing it was an ad, rather than the tiny text Download link.

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,306 points

Aug 18, 2015 4:48 AM in response to Keith Huggins

I don't see that on the page, but that is likely because I block a lot of stuff with a JavaScript Blacklist Extension.

I would normally not suggest a source that has that kind of crap on it, nor did I investigate further into the cost. My apologies.

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Answer 6

Aug 18, 2015 11:43 PM in response to Barney-15E

No need to apologize - even though there was an annoying / slightly deceptive ad on there with an enormous green download link, and it cost me a little money, you helped me figure out a problem I wasn't able to otherwise solve, so thanks.

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