Create (or paste) an empty .wav file and rename it by spreadsheet

[MischMaster]

Now I have another feature request and it's getting complicated.

The background is, that I have a Excel spreadsheet with e.g. 100 filenames in column A.
Then I have 90 .wav files in any folder. So 10 .wav files are missing.
I need to import all .wav files in Avid ProTools (audio program). For the 10 missing files I have to generate placeholders (.wav files with silence).
So the spreadsheet is king.

My idea is to manually copy column A to the clipboard. KM shall compare the clipboard with the .wav files, find a missing file, then generate a empty .wav of 5 sec and rename it with the a filename from the spreadsheet, that is too much.
I think KM can not create .wav files. So the idea is to copy a blank .wav file into clipboard, that I created before.

The aim is to have the same amount of audio files in the source folder like in the spreadsheet column, that are all named correct (like in the spreadsheet).

Any ideas? Puhhh...

Thanks,

Michael

[peternlewis]

Just create your 5 second empty wav file and then store it at a fixed path, and then Keyboard Maestro can use the Copy a File action to copy it to the specified location.

The same sort of technique as described:

Rename Files in the Finder With Sorting From a Spreadsheet

It would generally be easier if you select the whole range (so A1…A5) and then you can just Copy, and then Keyboard Maestro can iterate through the lines in the clipboard and perform the replacement. If the folder is open in the Finder, then you should be able to just use the FinderInsertionLocation token to get the path. So, something like this (from the selection range in Excel) Copy Set Variable Index to Calculation 1 format 0000 For Each variable Name in Lines In text %SystemClipboard% …

can be used to iterate through the spread sheet file names and copy the empty file on the missing files.

Make sure you have good backups, and then you can use the fact that the Copy action will simply error if the file is already there, so just copy it unilaterally and configure it to ignore any errors (don't abort and don't notify) and you should end up with all the files matching the spread sheet.

[MischMaster]

Renaming Files in Finder by Spreadsheet Error.kmmacros (59.0 KB)

Hi,

I've modified my macro but at each filename, that KM can't find in the folder, the "move/rename" action displays an error.
The Dummy.wav is getting copied in the folder, but it will not be renamed.
I think that %Variable%Name% has to be modified, because KM cant't find Dummy.wav.
Sorry... I'm still kinda newbe at this point.

Michael

[peternlewis]

This seems like a mix of the other question you asked. Do you need the index in this one as well, you did not mention that.

I think you just want to get rid of the initial Copy action, and then instead of the Move action, do:

Copy File, don't abort on error, don't notify on error
Move ~/Desktop/Dummy/wav
to: %FinderInsertionLocation%/%Variable%Index%_%Variable%Name%