Batch printing the grade book template with AppleScript.

Question

I am using the grade book template with numbers. However, I might need to get some applescript help.
The default template has a Report page, and it includes one student. I can  change the students name to change the values. This works brilliantly. However I have 300 pupils that I need to generate this report for. I want to have one of those reports for each student automatically generated and printable so that I can give them to the students at the end of the term.
Obviously, I don't want to generate each report myself. Applescript seems like the solution, but I don't know how to use it.
Can anyone lend a hand?

Answer 1

I think AppleScript probably is the best way to go here, but you probably ought to learn something about using it because it is often difficult to write and test a script on one system when it has to work on a different one. Yvan does a pretty good job of that, but my AppleScript skills are not that advanced.
My difficulties with your problem include:
I don't know what changes you might have made to the stock template in Numbers
I am using Snow Leopard, not Lion
I believe UI scripting is needed to duplicate a sheet, and I don't own the tools to determine how to select a sheet (if that is possible).
So, working with the unmodified template on my system, this is a script that I think does what you need (but it would probably have to be edited to suit your situation):
To run this script, UI scripting must be enabled. Numbers must be running with the Grade Book document open and the sheet "Reports" selected.
tell application "Numbers"
  activate
          set theDoc to front document
          set sourceTable to table "Student Grades" of sheet "Student Data" of theDoc
          tell theDoc
                    repeat with i from 4 to ((row count of sourceTable) - 1)
                              set theName to value of cell i of column 1 of sourceTable
                              tell application "System Events"
                                        tell process "Numbers"
                                                  click menu item "Duplicate" of menu 1 of menu bar item "Edit" of menu bar 1
                                        end tell
                              end tell
                              set theName to value of cell i of column 1 of sourceTable
                              tell sheet (i - 2) of theDoc
                                        set its name to (theName & " Report")
                                        set value of cell 1 of row 3 of table "Student Lookup" to theName
                              end tell
                    end repeat
  delete last sheet
          end tell
end tell