If you’ve recently upgraded your Mac to OS X 10.4, also known as “Tiger,” you’ve probably noticed the little robot on your desktop, almost certainly in your Applications folder. This is Automator, and besides being kind of cute, he (or she) is also your key to a whole new world of convenience. That’s because Automator lives (metaphorically, of course) only to serve you. It lets you define your own custom workflow – essentially actions that can be repeated over and over again with just a click of your mouse. Let’s say you want to take a few hundred photo files and convert them from TIFF to JPEG (or vice versa). Automator’s your guy! While it’s working away, you can grab a latte or practice some heavy metal licks on your new guitar. Pretty cool, eh?
When you use the “Save As…” command, you can choose to save your automated task (also known as your workflow) as an Automator document. Need it again? Just double-click on it, and keep in mind it’s fully editable. However, a more powerful method is to save the actions or workflow as a plug-in for use in other apps by using the “Save As Plug-In…” menu (rather than the “Save As…”). Now your custom workflow is available in the user interface of that other application (or applications). There are six apps that will happily welcome your automated tasks as plug-in scripts. These are: Finder, Folder Actions, iCal Alarm, Image Capture, Print Workflow, and Script Menu. For instance, if you save your workflow as a plug-in within iCal Alarm, you can schedule the Automator to run its tasks at a specified time – daily, weekly, monthly, or even forever. That way, at the end of every day, you could get Automator to print out invoices after you’ve left for home. They’ll be waiting for you in the morning.
Confused? No problem. Help is just a click away under the (where else?) Help button. When you’re stumped, you’ll be amazed at how much information is right at your fingertips, including additional information on ways to make OS X Tiger work for you. The best part of OS X? It never gossips, needs a coffee break, or arrives back late from lunch.