This seems like such a simple question but I have been unable to phrase it in such a way as to find a script for it. I export a lot of PDF files from Filemaker that tend to be bloated - I find I can SaveAs in Preview and typically reduce the file size from say 200K to 110K. I have been trying via Applescript and Automator to do a simple thing. Given Folder “A” with Exported PDFs and Folder “B” with nothing I have been trying to have Applescript open the PDFs in Folder “A” and simply SaveAs into “B” - Automator got close but I couldn’t SaveAs - that I could locate. My Applescript level would be “Desperate Novice”.
Browser: Safari 525.26.12
Operating System: Mac OS X (10.5)
Hi Stephen,
Unfortunately Preview.app is not (yet?) scriptable. But you can also try to shrink your PDF files by applying a Quartz filter, a popular method on the Mac:
Quartz-O-Shrink - Conveniently batch-shrink dropped PDF documents by a custom compression quality
Please note, that Quartz-O-Shrink will manipulate the original files, but you can «easily»* modify the source code to save the PDF documents into a new folder.
- after reading Neuburg’s AppleScript bible
Happy Scripting!
Martin
Thanks so much for that link. Amazing tool that Quartz-O-Shrink. It took a 10MB PDF from Filemaker - and compressed it to 0.3 MB. At maximum zoom in Preview I cannot tell any difference between the two files - even with the graphics. It is interesting, some of the text only PDFs stayed the same size, and some graphisc only did as well. But 10MB to 0.3 MB is dazzling.
Stephen