How to use Automator to create an Address Book table

Photographers often use the Address book form when organizing pictures (people often call it "proof sheets"): Place picture thumbnails in rows and columns so that you can preview the pictures in batches. In addition to photographers, the Address book form plays an important role in the day-to-day work of artists, designers, and Ui/ux engineers, greatly facilitating their efforts. Usually we create the Address Book table need to use Photoshop or pixelmator to generate a thumbnail, now with the OS X from the Automator, you can be from the boring, mechanical duplication of work, you only need to select a batch of files in the Mac, The rest is all left to Automator to complete. What's even more gratifying is that so much of the functionality is preset in the Mac OS x system and you don't have to spend a penny extra.

Below we will describe using Automator to generate the Address Book table and export the results to PDF files that can specify paper size, storage location, and number of columns:

Automator also has a very intimate design that uses the date and time as the file name of the output file, so you don't have to worry about overwriting the original file anymore. As the saying goes: "Speak not practice mouth", with the previous introduction, we began to demonstrate how to use Automator to create the Address Book table.

Set up the Create Address Book form service

First we need to create a service to generate the Address book form:

Locate Automator under the application, and then open the File menu and choose New

In the pop-up dialog box, select "Services"

Select photos in the resource pool on the left side of the application interface, and then locate the new PDF Address table in the column on the right, and double-click it to add another service.

At the top of the Automator, the ' services ' receive selected ' Right Drop-down box, select ' Image file '

In the New PDF Address Table dialog box, set the location where exported PDF files are stored (default is Desktop), paper size, and number of columns

After the setup is complete, select the File menu, and then click Store to save the new service, for example, we name it "new Address book form."

After you finish setting up, you can now exit Automator. If you want to make a few tweaks based on the build results, you can keep this window to change the settings.

The most complex part of the process has been completed (although this part is not complicated at all). Here we can directly generate the PDF Address Book form in the Finder.

Export the selected picture as the Address Book table

After creating the Automator service, we only need to select the desired picture, and leave the rest to the Automator service:

Select the desired picture in the OS X Finder

Right click on the selected picture, select the "Service" menu, and select the "New Address form" service that you just saved

PDF files need to wait patiently for a few seconds (depending on the number of pictures you choose)

The newly generated PDF file can be found on the desktop (if you change the default storage location for the exported file, the new file will be in the directory you set up)

The time it takes to export a file is usually very short, but the exact time depends on how much of your Mac's configuration and image file count. In general, 500 high-resolution pictures usually take a few minutes, and 50 low-resolution images take only a few seconds to complete. So it is a wise choice to generate a batch of low-resolution pictures in advance. Bulk scale pictures can also use Automator to simplify tedious repetitive operations, and creating a "scaling image" service can be done. In addition to Automator, Mac OS X's own preview also has the ability to scale pictures in bulk.

Use the preview to open the newly generated file, if the layout of the file, style does not meet your needs, only need to change the previously saved services, save the new style of the PDF file can be generated.

Another small trick is that the number of selected pictures if the number of columns is multiple times, the resulting file is the best effect. For example, if you set the format to 6 columns, then the 6 integer multiple images (12, 24, 36, 600, and so on) are selected to show the best results. This ensures that the number of pictures per row and column in the exported file is equal, so that the spacing between the two adjacent pictures is equal, with a symmetrical aesthetic.

Here is a screenshot of another Address Book table, which puts three thumbnails in each row in order to display a larger picture:

By the way, the picture we used earlier is the background picture of the table hidden in OS X. You can find them in the OS X 10.8 system.