How to turn a Bluetooth device into 'digital paper'
Oct 12, '07 07:30:00AM • Contributed by: cryptonomicon
Oct 12, '07 07:30:00AM • Contributed by: cryptonomicon
I have long dreamed of having "digital paper" that simply appears as a Bluetooth printer that I can print whatever I want to, and have laying around on my desk. Think of it as infinitely reusable paper. Well, that day is here... sort of.
I just got a Parrot Photo Viewer 7", which is a digital photo frame with decent resolution and Bluetooth built in. This hint turns it into digital paper by using a purpose-built Automator workflow and the Print dialog's PDF Services feature. This hint can also be generalized to "print" to any willing Bluetooth device. Things you will need:
- Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger) or greater
- A Bluetooth device to "print" to that supports Object Push and a common image format (e.g. JPG)
- The Bluetooth Object Push 1.1 Automator action.
- Unzip the bluetooth-object-push.zip file you downloaded
- Open the resulting bluetooth-object-push folder, control-click on the BlueActionMove-Installer_1.1 file, and choose the Show Package Contents from the pop-up menu.
- In the window that opens, drill down into the Contents folder, then the Resources the folder, then the Actions folder
- Drag the BlueActionMove.action file in the Actions folder to some place you can get to it (e.g. your Desktop)
- Open Automator (/Applications/Automator)
- In Automator, choose the Import Actions... menu item from the File menu and import the action you just extracted
- Verify that a Bluetooth item now appears in the Library column of the window in Automator (it will be at the bottom of the list initially)
Part II: Write the Automator Workflow
- In Automator, start a new Workflow In the Library column, select PDF, and from the Action column, drag the Render PDF Pages as Images action to the top of the workflow assembly pane.
- Make any adjustments to the Render PDF Pages as Images action's settings that you'd like (e.g. pick your image file format, etc.).
- Back in the Library column, select Bluetooth, then in the Action column, drag the Bluetooth Object Push action to the bottom of the workflow assembly pane.
- Make any adjustments to the Bluetooth Object Push action's settings that you'd like (e.g. specify a specific paired Bluetooth device to push to).
- Save the workflow somewhere you can find it for future access (e.g. your desktop) with a meaningful name (e.g. "Push JPG to Bluetooth Device")
- Open the /Library » PDF Services/ folder to make the workflow available to all users, or to ~/Library/PDF Services/ to make it only available to you.
- Place a copy of your saved workflow into this folder. You will likely need to authenticate if copying to /Library/PDF Services/.
- Open any application you like and choose the Print menu item from the File dialog.
- In the Print dialog, click the PDF button in the lower left hand corner, and then choose your workflow from the drop down menu.
[robg adds: I haven't tested this one.]
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