Print a file with specified Application from mac command line

Question

Is there a way of printing a file as if I had opened the file with a give app and pressed print in Mac from the command line, the same way I'd do this in Windows? I need it to go though the app since it's the only way it'll handle the file correctly

route/to/program.exe route/to/file.jpg /p

Answer 1

For many Mac applications, there is a way to print from the command line, but who'd want to? (I'm kidding.) OS X has an easier way.

Desktop Printer Icon

The specifics are different depending on OS version, but for OS X El Capitan, it's easy to make a desktop printer icon. Open System Preferences->Printers & Scanners. Drag and drop a printer icon to the Desktop.

To print a file, drag and drop it to the printer icon. If the application supports printing, the file will print on the selected printer using the printer's default options. For example, drag a JPEG file, a PDF, a Microsoft Word file and a Photoshop file to the printer icon, and the files will print. Need to print 12 PDF files? Drag them to the printer icon.

I paused my printer to show some files in the list of printer jobs after I dragged them to the printer icon.

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Automator

For more control of printer settings including application options, use OS X Automator.

Apple says:

Automator lets you automate much of what you do on your computer. With Automator, you don’t need to know complicated programming or scripting languages to create automations—you just use any of the hundreds of actions available in the Automator library to create workflows. Automator comes with a Library of hundreds of actions. The actions can interact with a variety of apps and parts of the OS. A workflow can be as simple as one action or contain many actions that perform a series of complex tasks.

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Script Editor and AppleScript

If an application doesn't have an Automator library, many Mac applications support AppleScript.

Apple says:

Script Editor lets you create powerful scripts, tools, and even applications. You can create scripts to perform repetitive tasks, automate complex workflows, and control applications or even the system. You can use various scripting languages, including AppleScript, JavaScript for Automation, shell scripts, and also some third-party scripting languages.

To check to see if an Application works with AppleScript and OS X El Capitan, open Script Editor. Open the Library window. If you don't see the application, click the blue + icon at the top of the window.

The window lets you open applications. If an application works with AppleScript, Script Editor will add it to the Library, if not, Script Editor will tell you that the application is not scriptable.

Here's a simple script.

on run these_files
    tell application "Microsoft Word"
        repeat with my_file in these_files
            print my_file
        end repeat
    end tell
end run

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Printing from the Command Line

OS X can print from the command line, but except for a few utility apps like BBEdit, there's nothing similar to the Windows method.

With OS X, if an application supports printing with AppleScript, the osascript command can automate printing with an application from the command line. See man osascript.

A command like this could print Microsoft Word files from the command line.

osascript printit.scpt /Users/user/Desktop/The\ Devil\'s\ Dictionary.docx