Create a PDF from a Word doc from within finder

USB_Stickler · October 2, 2022, 9:24am

Hi all!

For a LONG time I’ve wanted to easily do the following automation:

I select a Word doc in finder, then
Quickly create a PDF version of the file in the same folder (with the same file name).

I’ve struggled to find a way to do it. I think someone said it can be done by Applescript but I’m not clever enough to do that. It’s not easily done on Keyboard Maestro either.

Today I saw a ‘Make PDF’ action on Shortcuts though which is a good sign! I’ve played with it but still can’t make the workflow above however.

Can anyone please help me? I’m sure this is a piece of pie for people on here but it would save me SO much time…

Thank you all

sylumer · October 2, 2022, 4:01pm

I don’t know if this is still up to date with the latest version of Word on the Mac, but there are AppleScript example out there.

github.com

cmo-me/Word-to-PDF-Applescript/blob/master/Word to Applescript.applescript

-- WATCHOUT - DO NOT USE ON PUBLIC FOLDERS AS THE SCRIPT CAN USE ALREADY OPEN DOCUMENTS VS THE INTENDED DOCUMENT -- IT HAS A BUG

-- this script adapted from post at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3050596?start=0&tstart=0 solution by spazek
-- details on the use of this script for Hazel found a http://scrubbs.me
--  Updated with delay to solve issue as described by Corwin Carr   at Mac Power Users Show 186 notes http://5by5.tv/mpu/186  
-- the First two commands avoid an error where Word would be unable to get the file path. The script would ultimately run appropriately, but only after throwing the error. 

tell application "Microsoft Word" to activate
delay 1

tell application "Microsoft Word" to set theOldDefaultPath to get default file path file path type documents path -- looks like we change the default path to where the document is and then set it back when we're done
try
    tell application "Finder"
        set theFilePath to container of theFile as text
        
        set ext to name extension of theFile
        
        set theName to name of theFile
        copy length of theName to l
        copy length of ext to exl

This file has been truncated. show original

Alternatively, you can convert file formats such as Word documents to PDF using command line tools like Pandoc.

https://pandoc.org/

Shortcuts supports shell and AppleScript actions and can be set to be accessed as a Quick Action.

I don’t use Word on my Mac, but I do on my work PC (Windows), and I wrote a script to do this sort of conversion for several types of Office files. So, in case that’s of use to anyone coming across this discussion, you can find that script here:

Hope that helps.

Sullco · October 11, 2022, 12:24pm

I’m having the same issue. I had this figured out until I upgraded my Mac and now I can’t remember or find how I had it done.

Can someone guide me through getting the AppleScript set up and how I might be able to call it through either a shortcut or Keyboard Maestro so I don’t have to open word files before converting them.

Much appreciated.