Using Print Finder Items in Automator

[RESOLVED] Using Print Finder Items in Automator

On both my iMac and my MBP, I can't seem to be able to select a printer using the Print Finder Items action in Automator. There is no list to choose from. Any ideas?

I bet you have version 1.0.1 of this action as I do. It seems that the version of that action which did what you want was 1.0. Look at the Quick Print section of this article..

I have not found a solution yet. If you have a copy of the older version around try adding it to your Automator installation. Sometimes two actions can coexist without issues. When it is time to create a workflow simply choose the one that best fits what you want to do.

EDIT: See post 4

I found this via Google. I'm not sure whether is safe to download or use though.

Index of /System/Library/Automator/Print Finder Items.action

I have 1.0.1 unfortunately. Does Snow Leopard have 1.0 or 1.0.1? I have Lion which has 1.0.1 but I have a backup of all files I had in SL.

I still have Snow Leopard on a hard drive so I searched for the older version. I think I found it at Download Automator Fun Apps Set 1 for Mac - Set of 24 Automator applications. MacUpdate.com but unfortunately Lion identifies it as Power PC. Unless someone comes up with a Rosetta alternative that one is out of the question.

I am not much of an AppleScripter but I wonder if it is possible to use AppleScript to define the printer before running that action. I took a cursory look in Automator but did not find anything that looked appropriate.

Slydude said:

I still have Snow Leopard on a hard drive so I searched for the older version. I think I found it at Download Automator Fun Apps Set 1 for Mac - Set of 24 Automator applications. MacUpdate.com but unfortunately Lion identifies it as Power PC. Unless someone comes up with a Rosetta alternative that one is out of the question.

I am not much of an AppleScripter but I wonder if it is possible to use AppleScript to define the printer before running that action. I took a cursory look in Automator but did not find anything that looked appropriate.

Click to expand...

I wonder why it identifies it as PPC as it claims that it supports Intel too:

REQUIREMENTS
PPC / Intel, Mac OS X 10.4 or later.

I did find a link to Print Finder Items.action via Google. It could be 1.0 (I'm not sure). I can't seem to be able to post links (EDIT: Got it to work. See post #3 for link) in this forum but if you search for "print finder items.action site:f2dd.info" (without quotation marks), you should find it (first link on my machine). I don't know whether it's safe to download and use though.

(also - congrats on your 1,700th post! )

Thanks I will check that out. I think that what is happening here is that the action step itself is PowerPC code. It will run on both but running on Intel requires Rosetta. If it were a Universal Binary it would have both the Intel and Power PC code. Universal binaries will generally run under Lion because they have both Intel and Power PC code. It just runs the Intel code under Lion.

Slydude said:

Thanks I will check that out. I think that what is happening here is that the action step itself is PowerPC code. It will run on both but running on Intel requires Rosetta. If it were a Universal Binary it would have both the Intel and Power PC code. Universal binaries will generally run under Lion because they have both Intel and Power PC code. It just runs the Intel code under Lion.

Click to expand...

Let me know how you get on with it when you can. I'm going to download it later today once I get back home.

Bo98 said:

I found this via Google. I'm not sure whether is safe to download or use though.

Index of /System/Library/Automator/Print Finder Items.action

Click to expand...

The above link is now a 403 not found. Any suggestions for how to select a specific printer using this automator action?