Converting Documents To PDF

paulmjohnsonpaulmjohnson
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
One of the things I most like about OSX is the ability to save pretty much anything as a PDF.



However, I'm wondering if there is a way to do this in bulk.



I've created a bunch of Word documents (docx) which are saved in multiple folders, and I'd like to produce a pdf of all the documents, without having to go into Word and print to PDF.



Back in the past I had something called Adobe Distiller (I think it was called) which let me do that - do you know if the Mac does similar?



Thanks.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    parttimerparttimer Posts: 250member
    Set Automator to work opening, printing to PDF, and closing those documents, and go have a beer while it's doing it.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    paulmjohnsonpaulmjohnson Posts: 1,380member
    Thanks for the response. I had a look at Automator, and the only thing I can find for Printing a document would print it to one of my listed printers. There doesn't seem to be an option to print to PDF.



    If I pick the Word Save Document action, it will allow me to save it to PDF, but I can't figure out how to get it to re-use the original name of the file.



    I fully support your idea of going for a beer, so will do that and hope you've been able to help me further when I get back!



    Cheers!
  • Reply 3 of 4
    parttimerparttimer Posts: 250member
    You probably had a few sixpacks by now...



    So if you can still see straight you could try to record a macro of you manually opening one of those docs, printing it to PDF, and closing the doc. And then run that macro as many times as you need on a folder full of docs.

    You need a macro recorder for that. Try MadRuby. It's 5 years old, but may still work. Another one you could try is Macro Recorder Os X.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    liamd27liamd27 Posts: 22member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post


    Thanks for the response. I had a look at Automator, and the only thing I can find for Printing a document would print it to one of my listed printers. There doesn't seem to be an option to print to PDF.



    If I pick the Word Save Document action, it will allow me to save it to PDF, but I can't figure out how to get it to re-use the original name of the file.



    I fully support your idea of going for a beer, so will do that and hope you've been able to help me further when I get back!



    Cheers!



    Just use the 'record' button in Automator - I use it all the time for tasks like this. Just open up a document in Word, press the record button in Automator, and then click the FILE menu, the PRINT selection, the SAVE TO PDF option, etc, etc, when it's finished, close the window, click the red button on the automator window and tara it's there. Hope that helps!
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