Print - save as pdf with Aplescript

Question

Hello,
I would like to know how to script : "Print" with a "save as pdf" on application.
ie: I would like to print a web page from Safari, and select save as pdf to save the page in a pdf format document.
(I don't want to use Adobe...)
Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

I realized that it still might be a little confusing to figure out how to use that Automator action. So I will give you a step-by-step of mine.
Get Specified URLs->Download URL as PDFs(this is the action I linked before)(Note: I set the where to a temporary folder where no other file will ever be)->Pause for 5 seconds->Move Finder Items(Select a destination folder where you want to have your PDF in permanently)->Run Applescript (A)-> Run Applescript (B) -> Run Applescript (C)
Applescript (A)
--For whatever strange reason when you create the PDF it names it some random name so I rename the PDF after the current date in the YYYYMMDD format so that you can easily find the PDF on a later date.
on run {input}
repeat with i from 1 to (count of items in input)
tell application "Finder"
set thisItem to (item i of input as string)
set thisName to (the name of (file thisItem))
set newName to (do shell script "date '+%Y%m%d'" & ".pdf") as string
set the name of the file thisItem to newName
end tell
end repeat
return input
end run
Applescript (B)
--This script deletes the file from the original downloaded location. You have to do this because the previous applescript renamed the PDF and copied it to a new location.
do shell script "rm /path/to/file/that/was/set/in/the/DownloadURLsasPDF/action/*.pdf"
Applescript (C)
--Prints the PDF
set theLocation to ("path:to:new:location")
set fileName to (do shell script "date '+%Y%m%d'" & ".pdf")
set theFile to theLocation & fileName as text
tell application "Finder"
print file theFile
end tell
I hope this works for you. I use it every day to save a PDF of stock reports. If you have any questions feel free to ask.