If you know me, then you know that I love Automator and scripting things on the Mac. I believe that Automator should be something that everyone can take advantage of, not just the select few that already know how to use it well. That's why I've been working on the TUAW Mac Automation and AppleScript series for over a year now (we're going to have more coming soon, so stay tuned).

I was watching the WWDC '09 keynote, desperately waiting to see if anything new was announced for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard in regards to automation, and specifically Automator.app. Nothing was said at the keynote, but when I looked on the newly updated Snow Leopard page on Apple's site, I was ecstatic. One of the refinements listed was that Mac OS X Services would now be a feature of Automator. Services let you use features of one application while you are inside of another. In the Automator instance, you would be able to use workflows while you are inside of any Mac OS X application that supports the use of Services.

In addition to updating Automator for Services, Apple has also added more starting points for workflows. You can now choose between a standard workflow, application, service, folder action, print plugin, iCal alarm, or an image capture plugin. We will have more information about Automator and Services in Snow Leopard when it launches in September.

Have you ever wanted to type something into your Mac and have it record what you typed audibly using any one of the Mac OS X voices? It's easily done with a few Automator actions, and in this Mac Automation post, I'll show you how.

Open Automator and find the following actions, then drag them to the workflow area (in the same order):

• Get Specified Text
• Text to Audio File

Running the workflow
With these two actions in place, you can enter text into the Get Specified Text action, and a file name in the Text to Audio File action, and run it with great results. The text that you enter will be magically encoded into audio using the specified voice in the audio file action.

Read on to learn more about saving the workflow, and adding additional options.

We've discussed some pretty neat uses for Automator workflows in the past, but did you know you can easily integrate Spotlight searches into your automation workflows? Well, you can, and it might be easier than you think. In this Mac Automation post, I'm going to show you how you can integrate it into a workflow that will burn the resulting files to a CD or DVD.

Creating the workflow
To create this simple workflow, you'll need to use two actions. Find the "Spotlight" action and drag it to your workflow section; then, find the "Burn a Disc" action and drag it below the newly added Spotlight action. That's it; your workflow is now completed, but we need to tweak the actions.

Using the workflow
To test the workflow, you can enter a search term in the Spotlight action, and a Disc name in the Burn a Disc action. Insert a rewritable disc, or a regular CD/DVD, and click the "Run" button in the upper right corner of the Automator window. Automator will then go to work finding all of the search terms that matched files, then will then burn all found items to the disc. This could take a while to burn, depending on the resulting files.

Remember that all of the Spotlight tricks, such as exclusion, denoting kind, etc. are still available even though you're using the Automator action.

Do you want to use Automator's powerful features, but don't want to worry with "programming" the usefulness each and every time you wish to perform an action? With Automator for Leopard, you have the ability to easily record mouse moves/clicks and keyboard input with a feature called "Watch Me Do."

Initial Setup
Before using this Automator feature, you will need to turn on "Access for assistive devices." So head over to System Preferences > Universal Access. Make sure the checkbox is checked beside "Enable access for assistive devices." This allows Automator to control your mouse and keyboard movements/clicks/key presses. Watch Me Do will not work unless this box is checked.

Recording an Action in Automator
You are now ready to start recording your first Watch Me Do action in Automator. This feature gives Automator additional functionality if a prebuilt action is not readily available. So, before you go creating your own Watch Me Do action, look through the action list to make sure the functionality doesn't already exist.

When you are ready to record, press the "Record" button in the top-right corner of the window. The main Automator window will disappear, and you will see a heads-up display on the screen showing that Automator is recording; this display will also have a stop button -- when you are done recording your actions, you press this to return to the main Automator window. While recording, any mouse movements/clicks and key presses will be captured and added to your workflow.


Managing your recorded events
Each time you click, press a key, or move the mouse, you create an "event." Once you have recorded your Watch Me Do actions, you can reorder the specific events of the action. Just click and drag in the "Events" section. Be careful though, as some rearrangements can render the action workflow useless (i.e. reordering a click of a button before a specific dialog is displayed).

In the Watch Me Do action, you can also select a Timeout in seconds, and set the playback speed. Before changing these settings, note the defaults: Timeout is set to 0 seconds, and Playback Speed is set to 1x.

Read on to learn about running, saving, and get some tips about recording.

Say you're out and about and realize that your iPhone doesn't display iCal to-dos. What do you do? You've got two options: (1) Panic, (2) Use this Automator workflow.

With this workflow, you will have access to all of your to-dos, even if you are not at your computer -- you just need access to your main email account. When you send an email to your email account, this script will run, sending you back your ToDo list from iCal.

Creating the Automator Workflow
To create the Automator workflow, you need to find the following Automator actions and drag them into the workflow area of Automator (in the same order):

1. Find iCal Items
   
2. New Mail Message
3. Send Outgoing Messages

Tweaking the workflow settings
In the "Find iCal Items" action, select "To Dos" from the "Find" drop-down menu. In the "Whose" section, select "Due Date" from the "From" box and "Today" from the second box. You can deviate from the instructions on this step and use the settings that allow you get the most use out of this workflow (for instance, you can select any interval of time you want, etc.).

In the "New Mail Message" action, enter your email address in the "To" field -- this is the address that your ToDo list will be sent to. Fill in a descriptive subject line like "My ToDo Items for Today" or something similar. Be sure to select an email account that your remote Mac can utilize.


Continue reading to learn how to complete this workflow and create the Mail rules.

How many times have you been watching TV and wanted to quickly add a to-do or event (maybe both) to iCal? In this Mac Automation post, I'm going to show you how to create both a to-do and an iCal event from within Automator. You will be able to add new items to iCal without ever having to open it. Let's begin.

Creating the Automator Workflow (New iCal Event)
First we need to create an Automator workflow that will add the to-do and event to iCal. To create the workflow, just add the "New iCal Events" action to the workflow area. Before you continue, be sure to click the "Options" button at the bottom of the action and select the "Show this action when the workflow runs" checkbox.

Saving the Automator Workflow
To give you quick and easy access to the creation of iCal events, you can choose the Save As method of your choice.

Running the Workflow
To run the workflow, click the "Run" button in the top-right corner of Automator (or launch it as an application). When you run the workflow, you will be presented with a dialog that will ask you to specify a Name, Date, Time, and other information. When you press "Continue," the workflow will create the event in iCal.


Keep reading to learn how to quickly create to-dos in iCal.

Time Machine is great way to backup your entire Mac, but what if you want to make a single backup of your recently imported photos in iPhoto? Well, Automator for Leopard is here to help with this task. In this how-to, I will show you how to find photos taken in the last 2 months and burn the resulting photos to a disc for safe keeping.

Continue reading to learn how to create this Automator workflow.

Last week I showed you how to use Automator to make a workflow that took photos from your Mac with an iSight and sent them to your Apple TV. That how-to featured one way of using a variable in Automator to let the user name the photo themselves. In this week's Mac Automation post, I want to go into a little more detail on what variables are and what they can do for your Automator workflows.


Continue reading to learn more about using variables in Automator.

Parties can sometimes be boring, but with a Mac with an iSight and an Apple TV, you can liven up any party! In this how-to, I am going to show you how to create an Automator workflow that will take pictures at specified times and sync them over to your Apple TV, all without you ever lifting a finger. This Automator workflow is fantastic when you have people over for a party they can head over to your Mac, take a crazy picture of themselves and have it synced over to the Apple TV in the living room.

Continue reading to learn how to make this Automator workflow.

What do you do if you need to email a song from iTunes to your work computer, or to another machine you own? If you have one machine where you do all your CD imports, you might want to send a track to the office; maybe you've got your GarageBand compositions in iTunes and you want to send one to a friend. We can simply this process by using Automator for Leopard. In this how-to, I am going to show you how to quickly and easily e-mail songs from your iTunes library.

Continue reading to learn how to e-mail songs using Automator.

I've talked about getting your Mac to shutdown via an e-mail (or even take a picture from your iSight and e-mail it back to you), but I have received some comments and e-mails about using this script to send a snap of your computer screen when you want to "check up." So, in this Automator tutorial, I am going to show how to get a screenshot of your Mac no matter where you are -- via e-mail.

Continue reading to learn how to generate screenshots via Mail.

Have you ever been away from your Mac, then come back only to find that your co-worker has stolen your favorite Apple pen? Well, I am going to show you how to catch them in the act by creating a Mac "spy cam." For this how-to, you will need to create an Automator workflow, AppleScript, and some Mail rules. So, cue the James Bond music, and let's begin. You do need an iSight or a newer Mac with a built-in camera. (Yes, I know there are some tools prebuilt to do this -- but what's the fun in that?)

Continue reading to learn how to create the Mac spy cam.

Some of you news hounds may be aware of Newseum, the "interactive museum of news." Every day, they publish the front pages of over 600 newspapers from several companies. Wouldn't it be cool to get just the ones you like delivered to your (virtual) door as a single PDF? Automator to the rescue!

Dave Bednarski sent a great script he wrote to the folks at 37signals which serves that purpose. Basically, you enter the addresses of the papers you'd like to receive, filter for PDFs, download the result to the desktop and combine the lot by appending the pages into one big file. It's just that easy.

For an added bonus, attach this script to an iCal event and have your news waiting for you each morning. All that's missing is your mug of coffee, and the muddy pawprints of the family dog on the carpet after he runs out in the rain to chase the paperboy.

Welcome to the 3rd Microsoft Office 2008 automation post. Previously we covered automating Excel 2008 and Word 2008, now we shine the spotlight on PowerPoint 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an Automator workflow to automate the daunting task of applying animations to the slides and converting a presentation into a QuickTime movie file.

For this workflow, you'll need the following Automator actions (in the same order):

• Apply Animation to PowerPoint Slide Parts
• Convert PowerPoint Presentations to Movies
• Play Movies

Continue reading to learn how to create this workflow.

This is the second part of Mac Automation: automating Microsoft Office 2008. In this how-to, I will show you how to create an importer for Microsoft Excel 2008. This importer will allow you to type text in TextEdit.app (or other text editor) and import it into an Excel file.

For this automation, you will need the following Automator actions (in the same order):

• Create New Excel Workbook
• Set Excel Workbook Properties
• Get Specified Finder Items
• Import Text Files to Excel Workbook
• Save Excel Workbooks

Continue reading to learn how to automate this process.