Acrobat Pro automation?

I’ve been looking for ways to automate some common tasks with Acrobat Pro, but so far have not found any good solutions. I am open to doing these tasks with other PDF apps, but Acrobat Pro would be ideal as it’s available for both macOS and Windows, and I work with a mixture of clients on both of these platforms who already have it. The number one thing I’d like to do is to create a “droplet” that I can drag a PDF onto, and it will perform the Enhance Scan action where it will OCR, optimize the PDF’s size, etc. I have found that Acrobat Pro does a better job of this than other PDF apps, resulting in smaller files with better quality OCR. It’s frustrating that an expensive app like this that has so many good features seems so resistant to automation. Anyway, that’s my spiel — does anyone have any ideas, experiences, guidance they can share? Much appreciation for any and all input on this topic. Thanks!

I’m not an Adobe Acrobat user, but I do have a couple of suggestions that may help.

Based on what I have read in the previously, Adobe Acrobat apparently has extensive JavaScript support, and that is the (preferred?) way many automation solutions get produced.

If you are ever in a situation where there are no automation options on the Mac, Keyboard Maestro allows you to brute force your way through automating stuff (sending keypresses, pauses, auto clicking), and more scripting focusses, AutoHotKey on the Windows side provides similar brute forcing options. Whilst not ideal (i.e. slow and error prone), the brute force method can be quick to create and can provide a way to do things when there is seemingly no option available.

As you note, other applications (don’t ignore command line ones :wink:), may provide biable alternatives as well; but again I can’t attest to what might give the quality of result you are after as I’m not working with the same toolset, or have even looked at the same processes.

Hope something in that helps.

Thanks! This gives me some great options to look at.

I could have sworn Acrobat used to have droplets, etc. and it did - but they aren’t as powerful in DC that I can find. Best explanation I could find would be to run an Applescript droplet that CALLS the ACROBAT ACTION.
I tried for a few mins and while it can be done, there may be better ways of doing such actions.