Modifying a filename using the first word contained in the document.

Question

Hi,
I recovered around 2500 .doc files, lost in a drive fail (I know) and I've been trying to find a way to speed up the renaming process : I'm trying to create a macro that could grab the first characters, or first word of each file and replace Its filename with those characters. In a 2500-docs batch. I tried a lost of things, but am not sure if it's doable with Applescript.
Help ?
Thanks.

Answer 1

There are no bells and whistles here - e.g. minimal error checking - but this should give the basic pattern for applescript. Copy it into the applescript editor, save it as an application, then drag&drop files onto the application.
on open theFiles
          repeat with thisFile in theFiles
                    set thisPosixFile to POSIX path of thisFile
                    tell application "Microsoft Word"
                              open thisFile
                              tell document 1
                                        set wordOne to (get content of first word)
                                        close
                              end tell
                    end tell
                    tell application "System Events"
                              try
                                        set ext to name extension of disk item thisPosixFile
                                        set name of disk item thisPosixFile to wordOne & "." & ext
                              on error errstr
                                        display dialog errstr
                              end try
                    end tell
          end repeat
end open