Print filename or path with document?

[zqbobs]

I've searched for ways to do this online and in apps, without success. Most posts are years old, and it may be a dead topic. I would like to automatically print a filename (or better, path) as page header or footer when printing MacOS documents (Pages,Numbers,Keynote). Anyone know if that's possible and if so, how? I'm using Ventura on Intel Mac.

 

[chabig]

Printing a page header would be specific to the particular application and you would see the option in the print dialog under the application name. Notes and Safari can print headers. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote cannot.

 

[Slartibart]

Pages&company print headsets or footers. AFAIK you have at least 2 options to add a path and filename - sadly none of them is automatic, probably tha’s what @chabig refers to.

• Launch Finder.
• Select and right-click the file.
• Press and hold the Option key from the keyboard.
• Select Copy [file name] as Pathname.
• Then paste into the footer or header.

Another option is using Applescript. You create a Pages template with a placeholder in the footer or header, e.g. [FilePath] and [FileName]. Then you need some Applescript which you run from the opened document.

property tagStr1 : "[FileName]"
property tagStr2 : "[FilePath]"

tell application "Pages"
tell front document

set theTagName to the tag of every placeholder text whose tag is equal to tagStr1
set theTagPath to the tag of every placeholder text whose tag is equal to tagStr2

set docName to name of it as text

set docPath to file of it as text

set docPath to (POSIX path of docPath) as text

if text -1 of docPath is equal to "/" then

-- trim trailing slash from package folder path

set docPath to text 1 thru -2 of (POSIX path of docPath) as text
end if

if (count of theTagName) is not equal to 0 then

repeat with i from 1 to count of theTagName

set thisTag to itemi of theTagName

set (every placeholder text whose tag is thisTag) to docName
end repeat
end if


if (count of theTagPath) is not equal to 0 then
repeat with i from 1 to count of theTagPath

set thisTag to itemi of theTagPath

set (every placeholder text whose tag is thisTag) to docPath
end repeat
end if

end tell
end tell

If you change [B]tell[/B] [I]application[/I] "Pages" to [B]tell[/B] [I]application[/I] "Numbers" (or Keynote, Word, …) you should be able to use this method in other programs.

nota bene: this is some code I found a long time ago on some discussion board - I’ll check later and will supply a reference link. I haven’t run this from the latest Pages version (so far), mainly because I switch all my correspondence/documentation/writing to plain text or LaTeX. 😃


EDIT: how the heck do I insert code from the Applescript editor here keeping the indentation and format?

 

[bogdanw]

It’s very easy in LibreOffice. Insert - Field - More Fields (shortcut ⌘F2) File name – Path/File name.
Example inserted into footer

 

[kryten2]

EDIT: how the heck do I insert code from the Applescript editor here keeping the indentation and format?

Info: Posting code, please use the CODE tags

 

[Slartibart]

Info: Posting code, please use the CODE tags

Thanks. My issue is that sometimes this happens e.g. above:

… [B]tell[/B] [I]application[/I] "Pages" to [B]tell[/B] [I]application[/I]….

Does of course not happen when copy/paste from BBedit (or Textastic on iPadOS)... just recognised that this is restricted to inline code using [ICODE], something new every day 😀. Thanks again.

 

[bogdanw]

Copy-paste from ScriptEditor, Insert code - AppleScript

[CODE=applescript]

tell application "TextEdit"
    activate
end tell