#COMBINE PDFS IN PREVIEW HOW TO#
#COMBINE PDFS IN PREVIEW PDF#
#COMBINE PDFS IN PREVIEW FULL#

I think what you really want to be doing is to establish the base PDF to which all others are added, and then use the Hazel action with a script to add files to it, one at a time. Since you need two files at a minimum (the base PDF and one to append), I do not think this can be done in Automator…except as I will show you below! Further, Automator’s CombinePDFs element does not allow you to specify a file that was NOT passed in to the workflow in this case, your base PDF that should be accumulating all of the others. Rather, Hazel works with a single file at a time. However, that is not the way Hazel works. The workflow you have used is based on the idea that ALL of the pdfs to be combined are supplied as input to a single execution of the workflow. However, I don’t think this is the best way to approach your task. No harm there, of course - that’s why the website exists in the first place.

#COMBINE PDFS IN PREVIEW FULL#

Although the full detail of your workflow are not present in the image, it looks like you have basically taken a workflow for PDF combining that is fairly widely available, based on a workflow presented on the MacAutomator website. Hope this see what it is you are trying to do. Then, add another rule that matches on all files with the added tag that are older than some number of days that will ensure you have likely looked at the master pdf and detected any missing appends, and then moves those files to the trash.

#COMBINE PDFS IN PREVIEW HOW TO#

If you are not sure how to do this I can help with sample code when I am at my computer to test this out.Īnother option is to have the Hazel rule tag the files after the add is done, say with a flag called “added”. If not, if the Automator action returns a status code that indicates success or failure, wrap the call to the Automator action in a bash script or AppleScript which can return status to Hazel. The Hazel documentation will tell you this. I do not know if Automator workflows can return a status that Hazel can use to decide whether to keep on processing action rules or stop. I tend to like to ensure that the previous steps were successful before trashing a file. Now, in terms of dealing with the file after it has been appended: The Hazel action runs the workflow to do the append. file name is NOT the name of the master pdf.In Hazel, create a rule for the folder that matches all of the following criteria:

I will call the pdf that you add to the “master” below.Ĭreate the Automator workflow so that it accepts one pdf file and appends that file to the master. You have an Automator workflow that can combine PDFs. Any other pdf added to the folder is automatically appended that pdf. If I understand you correctly, you want to have one pdf in a folder that always remains there. Since no one else has yet responded, here are a few thoughts.

Combine pdfs in preview