Quark, PDFs and Automator

[MacBoobsPro]

I am looking for some automator actions to allow me to print (.ps) individual pages from a multipage Quark document then distill them with Acrobat and email them to a specific address.

I have googled but there seems to be a distinct lack of actions that revolve around 'printing' let alone printing in Quark.

Has anyone got any ideas where i may find something like what im looking for?

 

[Blue Velvet]

This is something I also plan on setting up at work over a network with a combination of watched folders for Distiller and something to do with Automator and smart folders...

You may be able to set email addresses for document review straight into the distilling process in the PDf settings so that after distilling, they open up in Acrobat for immediate review and emailing from there.

Following this thread with interest...

 

[MacBoobsPro]

This is something I also plan on setting up at work over a network with a combination of hot folders for Distiller and something to do with Automator and smart folders...

You may be able to set email addresses for document review straight into the distilling process in the PDf settings so that after distilling, they open up in Acrobat for immediate review and emailing from there.

Following this thread with interest...

The emailing bit i can do already as it is available in Automator. Its just theres no option to print from Quark. Even if i have to manually drop stuff into distiller its no biggy as i can wait for Automator to finish printing all the pages (while renaming them) then drop the PS files into Distiller then email each file individually with automator.

If that makes sense?

 

[Blue Velvet]

But you can set up watched folders with custom options in Distiller and print postscript to them from Quark. You can also specify where those PDFs then go to after distilling.

I don't use Quark (6's) print to PDF. I print postscript to watched folders from the print dialogue box using Adobe PDF as the PPD. Foolproof.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Have you got time to describe the setup, bearing in mind I dont have much Distiller or Acrobat experience?

I want to print all the pages of a quark doc individually (to .PS) then move them to Distiller to PDF them. Rename them (which is easy enough with automator) and send individually to one email address (because FTP keeps rejecting us).

EDIT: I 'Print, Save PDF as Postscript' but I have to do that for every page of the doc and it takes ages.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Create one or more specific folders in a new folder called Distiller Watched Folders that you want to print your postscript to. Don't ever move them or rename them otherwise Distiller will forget where they are.

Open Distiller. Go to Settings>Watched Folders. Add your folders to the watched folders list using the 'Add Folder' button. You can allocate specific distiller settings (compression and the like) for each folder. I have one called 'lo-res email proofs' for instance.

Set the 'Check watched folder every: X seconds' to how often you want Distiller to peek into it's watched folder.

Set the Post Processing to the 'Out' folder. Distiller creates one of these for every watched folder. Set up Automater to check those specific 'Out' folders and do its thing to them.

I don't know too much about Automater at the moment but want to learn more about that side of things.

Hope that's of some help.

 

[MacBoobsPro]

Create one or more specific folders in a new folder called Distiller Watched Folders that you want to print your postscript to. Don't ever move them or rename them otherwise Distiller will forget where they are.

Open Distiller. Go to Settings>Watched Folders. Add your folders to the watched folders list using the 'Add Folder' button. You can allocate specific distiller settings (compression and the like) for each folder. I have one called 'lo-res email proofs' for instance.

Set the 'Check watched folder every: X seconds' to how often you want Distiller to peek into it's watched folder.

Set the Post Processing to the 'Out' folder. Distiller creates one of these for every watched folder. Set up Automater to check those specific 'Out' folders and do its thing to them.

I don't know too much about Automater at the moment but want to learn more about that side of things.

Hope that's of some help.

Yes that helps a little but its really the actual 'printing' that I want to streamline as I have to : Print - Page 1 - Save PDF as Postscript - name PS file etc and it takes ages for a 40 oadd page document. Once all the PS files are created I just batch PDF them by manually chucking them into Distiller.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Hmmm... no immediate suggestions there for now. I'll give it some thought as it's not something I've had to do before, making individual PDFs of individual pages in an automated and streamlined fashion from Quark.

There might be an Xtension that can let you do something like this...

In the meantime, post on Quark forums. There are some people there that know their stuff inside out.

http://www.quark.com/service/forums/

 

[snickelfritz]

I recently discovered the "extract pages" function in Acrobat pro.
I simply export a multipage PDF from Indesign.
Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and choose Document>Extract Pages.
The pages are then saved as separate PDF files in one step.
I do a quick batch rename using an Automator workflow, and the separate pages are ready for press/email etc...

 

[Blue Velvet]

I recently discovered the "extract pages" function in Acrobat pro.
I simply export a multipage PDF from Indesign.
Open the PDF in Acrobat Pro and choose Document>Extract Pages.
The pages are then saved as separate PDF files in one step.
I do a quick batch rename using an Automator workflow, and the separate pages are ready for press/email etc...

Brilliant...

 

[JPyre]

I work for a publishing company and we use quark and distiler. We use a plugin for Quark called "mps batch print", it takes seperate quark docs and batch prints them to a watched folder on a server, where distiler picks them up and converts them to pdf or to the image setter. if its a multi page quark just click print pages seperatly or maybe im misunderstanding what youre asking....