Using Accordance Services with Automator Workflows

The Accordance Services work with Accordance since the program provides two powerful Automator Actions for use in creating Automator Workflows. Automator is a dynamic automation program in Mac OSX, which uses the building blocks of individual Automator Actions to create Workflows for automating regular tasks. These Services are a specialized type of Automator Workflow.

The Get Text from Accordance Action is used when silently retrieving the full text of verse references from the Accordance engine for use in a workflow.

The View Text in Accordance Action is used for sending a request to the Accordance application, based on custom selections, for viewing the search results of Texts and Tools within Accordance.

These actions can be combined with any number of other Automator Actions for creating your own custom Workflows and Services.

For instance, you could create a Service that uses the “Ask for Text” Action prior to a “View Text in Accordance” action, so that instead of working from a text selection in your document, the workflow would open a dialog box and ask you to enter a verse reference or other text before performing a search in Accordance. (To do this, you would need to uncheck the “Service receives selected text” menu option, which would make the Service available when text is not selected in a document.)

For more information about using Automator and creating your own Workflows, visit macosxautomation.com.