How to generate graphics into photoshop using actionscript?

Question

I've a text file with content like this:

id, pixelsize, color, text
block1, 200x60, black, Header
block2, 200x180, white, Body
block2, 200x60, black, Footer

Now using actionscript,

1. I want to generate a psd file which would generate a 3 vertical block graphics (like this) after parsing the given file. All the blocks are placed vertically on top of each other.

2. Convert this psd file into PDF automatically using the script.

3. Automate this whole process without opening photoshop. Is it possible?

Please help. Thanks.

Answer 1

You can do this kind of thing using the ExtendScript Toolkit from Adobe.

Not sure you can do it without having Photoshop open, however.

Answer 2

You aren't going to be able to create a PSD w/o opening Photoshop. Even when you use something like Adobe Bridge to batch process files from any Adobe app it still uses the appropriate app to open a supported file and perform actions on it.

I have seen apps that allow you to output PDFs from user defined text and variable images (PageFlex comes to mind)...but even then, saving Adobe-compatible files aren't simple tasks to turn off and on (like when you make a text file). There's a lot of data to manage even with PDFs and I'd suspect even more when you look at a PSD file.

Unless you can find an open-source app that somehow allows you mess with its coding so that you can bypass opening it 100% to output a somewhat compatible PSD/PDF file, I don't think you're going to be able to automate much w/o lots of work and some potentially expensive software solutions.

Long answer short, I think you'll have to use Photoshop at some point in your solution. On the upside, you could make a recording of actions in PS so that individual files can be output to whatever format you like...and those I'm sure can be scripted into complicated solutions.

Answer 3

Given that you want a PDF at the end, could you use something like AlivePDF (ActionScript 3 Open-Source PDF Library)?

If you actually need to also generate a PSD, I'm not sure how you do that from scratch, but the Photoshop SDK would be a good place to start, as well as getting a good understanding of bytearrays.