Many everyday computing tasks are highly repetitive. Labeling groups of pictures, extracting text from a PDF document, or repeatedly clicking the mouse to keep yourself logged in to gaming or banking website all eat into your time. Instead of accepting such mundane, time-wasting activities as facts of life, many tech-savvy Mac users turn to Automator for their timesaving needs. Automator allows you to create workflows that automatically perform specific, repetitive tasks.
**Note**
The term “workflow” refers to a task created in Automator. When activated, a workflow completes a sequence of pre-arranged tasks.
Where do I find Automator?
The Automator program comes standard on any Mac running OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later. To locate the Automator program, open your Finder window on your Mac. Type “Automator” into the search window. When the Automator icon appears, double-click on it to open the program. For easy access, drag and drop the icon on your dock.
Using Automator
Here are the basic steps one must take to create a workflow in Automator.
1. Choose your template.
When you first open Automator, a screen will appear asking you to choose a template for your workflow. Descriptions of each type of template appear when you hover the cursor over the icon. Templates control how the workflow will be activated.
We will primarily be discussing the simplest type of template, the Workflow Template. This basic template requires the user to run the workflow within Automator. Other templates allow the workflow to be activated when the user opens a particular folder, or on a certain date/time of day.
2. Create your workflow.
On the left-hand side of your Automator screen, you will see two columns entitled “Actions” and “Variables”. The Actions column contains a list of all possible actions the Automator program can perform. The Variable column contains a list of all the possible items or files upon which you can perform actions.
Here’s an easy way to visualize the respective roles of actions and variables: each action is performed on an “object”. When one says, “The dog chased the ball,” the action of the dog chasing was performed on the ball. In Automator, the Variable category represents the ball and the Actions category represents the dog chasing.
Another nice feature is the Description section attached to each action or variable. When you click on the Description tab, a complete outline of the action’s function appears.
If you can’t find the action you need, try entering it into the “Search” bar in the upper-left corner of the screen. Other actions can be downloaded off of the Apple website.
You create your workflow by dragging and dropping each action and variable into the queue on the right, and setting your variables. The order in which you arrange each variable and action determines the order in which the workflow progresses.
**A Brief Example**
If I want to set up a very simple workflow that, when activated, will drop a file named “test” on my desktop, I would take the following steps:
A. Select “New Folder” from the “Files and Folders” list under “Actions”.
B. Drag and drop the action into the queue and enter the word “test” into the blank field.
3. Run your workflow.
Click the Run button in the upper right-hand corner of your Automator screen to see if your workflow executes properly.
Check your desktop for a folder marked “Test”.
The Record Feature
If you’re not sure how to begin creating a workflow, you can simply click the Record button in the upper right hand corner of the Automator window.
Then, perform the action you want Automator to take. When you’re done, click the stop button located on your desktop. A list of all the actions you took while recording will show up on the Automator screen.
Press the Run button to test the workflow.
Once you’ve determined that there are no errors, save the file as an application. If you saved it to your desktop, an icon will appear there with the file name below it.
Clicking on this icon will execute your workflow.
Learning to use Automator takes time. Playing around with its features is the best way of developing a working knowledge of the Automator system.
