I don’t have Adobe Acrobat, and don’t want to fill up my hard-drive with something which amounts to bloatware to me. So I fired up Automator. Automator is a handy little app which will make workflows for you by simple drag’n drops. Like making an AppleScript without any coding. It can do a lot of cool stuff, and usually if you think “Wouldn’t it be great if..” then Automator might be the answer for you.

In this case it’s quite simple. You’ll find Automator in your Applications folder. Open it. At first it will ask you to “Select a starting point to open a new workflow”. Choose the “Files & Folders”, and select “Ask for files & folders when my workflow runs” from the second dropdown menu. You want to be able to re-use the workflow later. Now click choose.

Now here’s one I made previously. As you see it has an iTunes-like interface. From the left-most column there’s a library of typical osX apps and files. Selecting one of these will show the actions which Automator has ready for you. Choose the one that suits you, double-click or drag’n drop it into the main well to the right. This is what I did to make my very basic pdf merger:

1. Finder: Ask for Finder items. Check Allow Multiple Selection
2. PDF: Combine PDF pages
3. PDF: Rename PDF Document.
4. Finder: Move finder items. I like new files to show up on my Desktop for easy renaming and management.
5. Finder: Open Finder items with Preview. Finally show your newly merged pdf to check that it’s all good.

I couldn’t find a way for it to open query box letting me write my own custom new file-name during the workflow, so for now I’m stuck with renaming the file after creation. Please let me and other know in the comments if you know of a way.

And here’s the screengrab you’ve been waiting for. Click it to see the full size version on flickr. I promise it’s easier to read.