automating-pages

Automating Pages (JXA-first, AppleScript discovery)

Relationship to the macOS automation skill

• Standalone for Pages, aligned with automating-mac-apps patterns.
• Use automating-mac-apps for permissions, shell, and UI scripting guidance.
• PyXA Installation: To use PyXA examples in this skill, see the installation instructions in automating-mac-apps skill (PyXA Installation section).

Core framing

• Pages dictionary is AppleScript-first; discover there.
• JXA provides the logic and data handling.
• Objects are specifiers: References to Pages elements that require methods for reads (e.g., doc.body.text()) and assignments for writes (e.g., doc.body.text = 'new text').

Example: Create Document

const pages = Application('Pages');
const doc = pages.Document({templateName: 'Blank'});
pages.documents.push(doc);
doc.body.text = "Hello World";

Workflow (default)

1. Discover: Open Script Editor > File > Open Dictionary > Pages.
2. Prototype: Write minimal AppleScript to verify the command works.
3. Port to JXA: Convert AppleScript syntax to JXA objects.
   • Example: make new document becomes pages.documents.push(pages.Document()).
   • Add error handling (try/catch blocks).
4. Optimize: Use batch text operations when possible to avoid performance penalties.
5. Fallback: Use AppleScript bridge or UI scripting for dictionary gaps (e.g., specific layout changes).

Image Insertion (Critical Difference from Keynote)

IMPORTANT: Pages does NOT support direct image insertion like Keynote does:

// THIS WORKS IN KEYNOTE:
Keynote.Image({ file: Path("/path/to/image.png"), position: {x: 100, y: 100} });

// THIS DOES NOT WORK IN PAGES!
Pages.Image({ file: Path("/path/to/image.png") }); // ❌ Will fail

Solution: Use ObjC Pasteboard bridging (see pages-advanced.md for details):

ObjC.import('AppKit');
const nsImage = $.NSImage.alloc.initWithContentsOfFile("/path/to/image.png");
const pb = $.NSPasteboard.generalPasteboard;
pb.clearContents;
pb.setDataForType(nsImage.TIFFRepresentation, $.NSPasteboardTypeTIFF);
// Then use System Events to paste (Cmd+V)