Note the connection between the input data bar and the top of the action, to indicate that the input data will be passed to the action as input.ĭO THIS ►Save the workflow and it will be automatically installed into the user Services folder located in the user Library folder. (5) Automator Action From the Automator Action Library, add the New TextEdit Document action to the workflow. NOTE: Numbers currently does not support writing workflow data back into the selection. (4) Return Workflow Output Select this checkbox if you want the results of the workflow to replace the current selection in the target application. Select the Numbers application from the popup menu. (3) Target Application Popup Menu Choose the application in which this service should be available. For use with Numbers, set the popup to text. (2) Input Data Type Popup Menu The selection of this menu determines the data type used for the input of the workflow. Since Automator service workflows are contextual, the input choice also determines when the service will appear on the application’s contextual menu. (1) Input Banner The input bar at the top of an Automator service workflow determines the type of data supported as input to the workflow. The illustration and callouts below describe a simple example Automator service workflow, that moves the selected data from Numbers to a new document in the TextEdit application.įor more information on Services, and how they are created and used, watch this short video.Ĭreating an Automator Service for NumbersĭO THIS ►Begin by creating a new Automator workflow document, choosing Service as the template type for the workflow. You can use Automator to easily create text-based services that can extract, process, and even replace the selected data. With this version, the services component of the application contextual menu becomes active, when text is selected in a table or in a text container on a sheet. Numbers 3.1 adds support for system text services.

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