I have a list (60 lines) of titles/names in an excel sheet that i would like to turn into individual folders in Finder.
I suspect the actions are:
1. Select the active cell
2. Copy the active cell
3. Create the folder name
4. Paste the clipboard
5. go back to excel
6. move down one cell
7. repeat till the end of the list
As a newbie, I am sure i am forgetting a few things between some of those steps.
Can anyone help?
—–
Laurent
That sounds right. But why not just do it? Then you'll know. 60 isn't that much. All of those steps can be done with the keyboard. So it should take about 5 seconds to create one folder. So that's 5 minutes to do them all.
After you position the selection in Excel to be that first cell, then:
Command+C to copy.
Command+Tab to switch to the Finder (which has the main folder shown in the front window).
Command+Shift+N to create the new Folder.
Command+V to paste the name.
Command+Tab to switch back to Excel.
Down Arrow (or right arrow depending)
Then back to the first step.
Hi Gary,
Many thanks for the reply.
I do appreciate the advice. However, if i ask, it is because this is a repetitive task ;-). furthermore, i do know the option you are referring to, very simple, yet very effective... yet not suitable for this repetitive daily task.
Again, thanks for the alternative, even if it is not the one that suits my need.
All, i may have forgotten to mention that i was looking to do this with automator :)
Ah. You didn't mention that you wanted to do this as a regular task. You certainly can do this using Automator, or a combination of Automator and AppleScript. In fact, if you search Google for "applescript create folders from text list" you can see a bunch comes up. I envision you copying the list of folders from Excel and then running a script to then populate the current Finder folder with subfolders based on the lines of text you have copied. You could probably do this with a Terminal script as well.
I'm not sure what your experience is with AppleScript or Terminal shell commands, but if you aren't a coder and this task is something that takes too much of your time, then I would look to hiring one to create something for you to make this more automatic.
Hi Gary,
Yes indeed, this is a repetitive task and my mistake was to forget to mention that i need to automate it using Automator.
I am not a scripter, nor am i (yet) very very good at programming with AppleScript.
However, i will indeed try.
Your suggestion of hiring someone to write the script or the automator flow looks very appealing and i would welcome suggestion you may have on this alternative.
Thanks again for the words of wisdom.
I would start by doing the search on "applescript create folders from text list" and seeing what you can make of that. If something comes close, perhaps contact the people writing those articles and see if they will make a modified version for you that will fit your needs.