How can I use Automator to open and save Word docs with links?

Question

Hi-
I'm having trouble building a Workflow to open and save Word docs with links.
My Workflow so far:
1. Get Finder items
2. Copy Finder items (to new folder)
3. Rename selected items
4. Open selected items (Word docs)
Three problems occur.
The first is a Word 2004 problem -- I can't get the warning "This document has links in it; do you want to open it with/without updating the links" to go away (Unilke the Macro warning toggle capability, there is nothing in the Preferences for Word 2004 that addresses the links warning, as far as I can tell; any insight you can shed on this would be terrific.)
The second problem happens with Automator: if I manually accept the update of the first document's links, Automator opens that document but then halts completely, even though I've instructed it to open multiple documents.
The third problem I have is that there's no Finder action in Automator that allows me to save the document that's now open (as far as I can see).
Any suggestions for how to fix? If I can get this to work, and scheduled in iCal, it will be an unbelievable time saver.
Thanks,
Jeremy
PowerPC G5   Mac OS X (10.4.6)  

Answer 1

Hi there Jeremy,
to do this you are going to have to add in some Run AppleScript steps...
These will rely on GUI Scripting. So first you need to activate GUI Scripting.
Now we need to add in a Run AppleScript action to the end of your workflow...
This will replace your current number 4 in the workflow (Open Selected...)
click here to open this script in your editor<pre style="font-family: 'Monaco', 'Courier New', Courier, monospace; overflow:auto; color: #222; background: #DDD; padding: 0.2em; font-size: 10px; width:400px">on run {input, parameters}
set allItems to every item of input
repeat with currItem in allItems
tell application "TextWrangler"
open currItem
end tell
activate application "TextWrangler"
tell application "System Events"
tell process "TextWrangler"
delay 2
--when the Word document is opened I have told it to press okay !
--I don't know what key you want it to press in the dialog box
keystroke return
delay 2
--save the doc
keystroke "s" using command down
delay 5
--close the doc
keystroke "w" using command down
end tell
end tell
end repeat
return input
end run</pre>
The above script should open each Word Document, press a button in the dialog box then do a save and then close the doc...then loop through the rest of them.
You need to replace the name Text Wrangler with Microsoft Word (or whatever it is called!), I don't have it on my Mac.
You will have to let me know what button needs pressing in the first dialog, if it isn't the 'highlighted ' one then we will have to amend the script...
regards
Ric