Scripting Preview

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 6:01pm

does anyone out there know if there is a way to give preview commands without driving the GUI like a service or can will it accept a command line ?

StefanK · January 2, 2007, 6:14pm

Hi,

Preview.app is (a bit) scriptable, but you must enable it manually.
Open the Terminal and type (better copy ) this:

defaults write /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScriptEnabled -bool YES

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 6:22pm

ok I ran that but I got back some stuff I’ve never seen before… I take it this makes it so I can give it a command from terminal ?

Bruce_Phillips · January 2, 2007, 6:22pm

See also: Minimal Scriptability

Edit: mcgrailm, it turns on some very basic AppleScript support.

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 6:35pm

hmm in either case I am unable to set that value to true as it doesn’t seem to exist for that app

what I’m really trying to do is get preview to convert a PS to PDF as pstopdf makes a much llarger file than if I save the PS to PDF from Preview

what about through Xcode is there some way I can get that same result there ?

Bruce_Phillips · January 2, 2007, 6:40pm

I don’t get any output from that command; Maybe we can help if you post that “stuff.”

StefanK · January 2, 2007, 6:48pm

Do you use Panther?
Then try the boolean value 1 instead of YES

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 6:49pm

here it is

McGrail:~ mcgrail$ defaults write/Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScripterEnabled -bool YES
Command line interface to a user’s defaults.
Syntax:

‘defaults’ [-currentHost | -host ] followed by one of the following:

read shows all defaults
read shows defaults for given domain
read shows defaults for given domain, key

read-type shows the type for the given domain, key

write <domain_rep> writes domain (overwrites existing)
write writes key for domain

rename <old_key> <new_key> renames old_key to new_key

delete deletes domain
delete deletes key in domain

domains lists all domains
find lists all entries containing word
help print this help

is ( <domain_name> | -app <application_name> | -globalDomain )
or a path to a file omitting the ‘.plist’ extension

is one of:
<value_rep>
-string <string_value>
-data <hex_digits>
-int[eger] <integer_value>
-float <floating-point_value>
-bool[ean] (true | false | yes | no)
-date <date_rep>
-array …
-array-add …
-dict …
-dict-add …

Bruce_Phillips · January 2, 2007, 6:51pm

I think you’re missing a space after “write.”

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 6:53pm

I opened the info.plist and its not there

Bruce_Phillips · January 2, 2007, 6:54pm

Can you add it yourself?

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 7:00pm

no I don’t have permission

Bruce_Phillips · January 2, 2007, 7:08pm

I thought that would be the case. Unless you can use sudo, you’ll have to find a different way to do what you want.

Side note: You typed “Scripter” instead of “Script”

mcgrailm · January 2, 2007, 7:16pm

Ok thank you all for your help …

StefanK · January 2, 2007, 7:21pm

I knew, why I wrote

Ray_Barber · August 5, 2011, 12:49am

In 10.7 Info.plists are owned by root:

sudo defaults write /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScriptEnabled -bool true sudo chmod 644 /Applications/Preview.app/Contents/Info.plist sudo codesign -f -s - /Applications/Preview.app
Now tell app “Preview” to windows shouldn’t cause an error. As in 10.6, Preview still won’t have a dictionary.