DIY automation for niche markets

Specialized markets don’t always use page layout programs
which have workflows designed for them. Often, workflows involve Adobe
Illustrator, dielines, layers, spot colours and odd page sizes. These workflows
don’t fit with standard preflighting software, standard pdf workflow software,
proofing systems and regular separation workflows.

Specialized prepress workflows rely on the ingenuity of the
production artists, prepress specialists and colour separators. Often, they
don’t realize that they could be getting more by automating their tasks using
Tigers Automator and Applescript on their own.

Adobe Illustrator was limited to Illustrator Actions in
previous versions, but now has an Applescript Dictionary that brings the power
of Applescript to all Illustrator users. Illustrator CS2 ships with some
standard and sample scripts that can be altered to meet your needs.

Sample scripts will show you how to:

• Analyze
  documents
• Collect
  for output
• Create
  a calendar
• Create
  a contact sheet
• Create
  a dataset from text
• Export
  Flash Animation

Work
with paths and text

The scripts can be altered to fit a specialized workflow
such as removing overprints (or adding them to specific paths), get the spot
colours used in a job or check out images embedded or placed in an Illustrator
file. The niche markets have special needs and these can be met using
Applescript and Automator.

The main reasons to automate processes are to speed them up
and to eliminate errors. The less we have to touch files, the more we can
reduce unnecessary errors and speed up the process. Workflows currently use
Illustrator Actions to handle repetitive tasks. These existing actions can be
added to any script or Automator workflow to further enhance it.

The scripting community on the internet has representatives
from niche markets posting their scripts for everyone to use. I’ve tested
scripts that create marks and bearer bars that create custom dielines. New
scripts can be posted at any time.

The script supplied by Adobe to analyze documents can be
altered to add any specific issue related to existing prepress software and
separation rules. Text can be automatically outlined, PDFs can be created to
spec if the file passes, spot colours can be inspected as well as tints, and
dieline measurements can be added to a report.

Here is a sample script that will set all the selected
paths, fill and stroke to overprint. You can change it to false to turn off
overprints. Illustrator users understand how unreliable selecting several
objects and applying an overprint can be.

The "do script" at the beginning calls an Illustrator Action
in an Action set called "Workflow Actions." This action unlocks all and selects
all, but you can manually select parts of the file before running this script.

This next script will print individual layers from an
illustrator file, but you could easily change it to save to pdf or postcript.
The point is, you don’t have to create scripts from scratch – there are
enough working scripts available to work with and alter to your own needs.

Some hints to help you along the way

Open the Script Editor on your Mac and select Open
Dictionary. There you can select the Adobe Illustrator CS2 Dictionary and see
all of the commands that are available to use in Applescript. The other trick
is to select the Event Log in the bottom of the Script Editor window. If your
script has trouble, it will show you where it bottomed out.

Once you get your feet wet, you’ll find you can figure out
how to make Illustrator do what you want it to do and incorporate your actions
as well. You’re on your way to creating the "Do It Yourself" Custom Automated
Workflow!

Andrea Mahoney

TriBay Enterprise

T: 416.72939687

E:
andrea@autoflowforprepress.ca