How do I automate opening a PDF in Preview, opening Print, Save as PDF--without opening preview??!

There were a couple of typo's on the following line:

optDic's setValue(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationOption)

Corrected:

optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationsOption)

Otherwise, the proper usage in a Shortcut from the code I provided above:

AppleScript

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "PDFKit"
use scripting additions

property ca : current application
property SUFFIX : "_withOCR"

on run {input, parameters}
	set sysvers to system version of (system info)
	set vers to text 1 thru ((offset of "." in sysvers) - 1) of sysvers
	
	-- select a PDF that you know has scanned text that has not been OCR'd
	-- set thisPDF to POSIX path of (choose file of type "PDF") as text
	display dialog vers as text
	set thisPDF to POSIX path of (input as text)
	set ext to (ca's NSString's stringWithString:thisPDF)'s pathExtension()
	set outPDF to (ca's NSString's stringWithString:thisPDF)'s stringByDeletingPathExtension()
	set outPDF to outPDF's stringByAppendingString:SUFFIX
	set outPDF to outPDF's stringByAppendingPathExtension:ext
	
	set optDict to ca's NSMutableDictionary's dictionary()
	if vers = "14" then
		optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentSaveTextFromOCROption)
	else if vers ≥ "15" then
		-- optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDDocumentSaveTextFromOCROption)
		-- optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentOptimizeImagesForScreenOption)
		-- optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentSaveImagesAsJPEGOption)
		optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationsOption)
	else
		return
	end if
	
	set pdf to ca's PDFDocument's alloc()'s initWithURL:(ca's NSURL's fileURLWithPath:thisPDF)
	-- write outPDF as an OCR'd PDF
	pdf's writeToFile:outPDF withOptions:optDict
	
	return input
end run

And the Shortcut itself:

I just tested this Shortcut on a PDF with several highlight annotations and this wrote a PDF with all of the annotations burned (flattened) into it. Tested on macOS 26.0.1.

You could do it with a maco editor like Keyboard Maestro. You would first have to rename the file or duplicate it and rename it to a given file name. I used "x.pdf" in my test. The Keyboard Maestro macro looks like this:

It opens x.pdf, does a ⌘P to print, clicks on PDF, and hits the right buttons to print to PDF, replaces the original x.pdf file and closes the Preview window.

There's a trial version that you can use to test the concept. It's a $36 one time purchase with free upgrades. It's my primary utility for my everyday operation.

[Edited by Moderator]

Apple's PDFKit recognizes PDF form fields as a PDFAnnotationSubtypeWidget and the original PDF designer that created the form fields chooses to mark them locked or not, and in the case of a Date form, a min and max date range, and the allowed date string format can be configured. Depending on the form design tool, there may be additional JavaScript code in the form controlling its behavior. Preview ignores PDF-based JavaScript.

I created a Date form in a LibreOffice Writer .odt document and then exported to PDF with either PDF, or XML form types. One version was locked and the other not.

One can filter on the annotation's fieldName (the name the form designer gave the field), or by matching the annotation's widgetStringValue to the date string in the form field with a regex pattern. Further, if the form field is not locked, one can update the widgeStringValue with a new date string, and then save the PDF to itself to update its content. In this scenario, one does not need any write options since you are not destroying any annotations (e.g. form fields) by flattening the annotation layer.

Ironically, Preview does not show the Inspector's filling in existing form fields permission as locked, but the Swift code checked if the annotation's isReadOnly flag was not true and that was ignored, when it should have detected the Date form field lock setting I made earlier.

The thing about Swift is that eventually, someone at Apple will deprecate or change something in the language or frameworks and your Swift handler will break, throwing you into an expletive-rich debugging session.

Here is an AppleScript/Objective-C solution with less code and does not require command line tools installation. It is designed to OCR scanned PDFs, but you could add a Dictionary (optDict) key to use the PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationsOption (Objective-C) option for PDF flattening.

-- PDFKit_OCR.applescript

-- Applies Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to a scanned PDF so the text
-- is searchable. Optionally, can flatten annotations in a PDF using the
-- PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationOption key.
-- Tested: macOS Sequoia 15.7.1 and Tahoe 26.0.1
-- VikingOSX, 2025-10-22, Apple Support Communities, No warranties of any kind.

use framework "Foundation"
use framework "PDFKit"
use scripting additions

property ca : current application
property SUFFIX : "_withOCR"

set sysvers to system version of (system info)
set vers to text 1 thru ((offset of "." in sysvers) - 1) of sysvers

-- select a PDF that you know has scanned text that has not been OCR'd
set thisPDF to POSIX path of (choose file of type "PDF") as text
set ext to (ca's NSString's stringWithString:thisPDF)'s pathExtension()
set outPDF to (ca's NSString's stringWithString:thisPDF)'s stringByDeletingPathExtension()
set outPDF to outPDF's stringByAppendingString:SUFFIX
set outPDF to outPDF's stringByAppendingPathExtension:ext

set optDict to ca's NSMutableDictionary's dictionary()
if vers = "14" then
	optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentSaveTextFromOCROption)
else if vers ≥ "15" then
	optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDDocumentSaveTextFromOCROption)
	optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentOptimizeImagesForScreenOption)
	optDict's setValue:(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentSaveImagesAsJPEGOption)
	-- optDict's setValue(true) forKey:(ca's PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationOption)
else
	return
end if

set pdf to ca's PDFDocument's alloc()'s initWithURL:(ca's NSURL's fileURLWithPath:thisPDF)
-- write outPDF as an OCR'd PDF
pdf's writeToFile:outPDF withOptions:optDict
return

You can't do what you want without opening Preview. It's a Preview document.

The Keyboard Maestro can open the file with Preview, print to PDF and then close Preview all within a couple of seconds. You can have KM save the new file to another location if you want to preserve the original.

Even with a PDF selected in the Finder, if you attempt to run the Shortcut directly from the Shortcuts panel of Shortcuts, or with the Shortcut open and clicking its run button, it does nothing since it is designed to be run only as a Quick Action from the Finder's secondary menu and no Shortcut Input was available.

However, you can run the Shortcut from the Terminal in the following manner:

shortcuts run "Shortcut name" -i input_annnotation.pdf

and it will write the output PDF to the same path location. That works on Tahoe 26.0.1.

I have no idea why you got that missing value message, unless possibly:

1. You ran this Shortcut on an older version of macOS between Monterey and Sequoia where the PDFDocumentBurnInAnnotationsOption enum may not have been implemented in PDFKit yet.
2. No output PDF filename was available for the writeToFile argument
3. No valid PDF filename was available to PDFDocument

When a PDF has only a Finder Lock (small icon in the lower left corner) on the PDF icon, this Shortcut will produce an output PDF with flattened content. Alternatively, if that Finder PDF Icon is blank with a large lock symbol on it, then it is a password encrypted and locked PDF. In that case, the Shortcut will generate an empty PDF because the ability to copy the PDF content is inherently blocked.

In the latter case, one can test if the PDF document isEncrypted. When/if you know the password, then there is an unlockWithPassword method that would do that, and then the Shortcut can produce the expected flattened PDF result. The Shortcut would need to prompt you for that password and provide it to that method. If you don't know the password of an Encrypted/Locked PDF, then the shortcut should just quit as it has no means to produce anything other than the observed empty PDF.

Tested: macOS 15.7.1 with an encrypted PDF created by Master PDF Editor

I’m not understanding why you need to open a PDF to save it as a PDF, and how do you think you can open Preview but not open Preview.

Can you explain what you’re starting with and why you then need to save it as a PDF when it’s already a PDF.

if you’re entering data into a form field, then save that as a PDF after you finish, editing it. There are built-in PDF tools in the command line that may solve your problem, but I’m not sure cause I don’t understand the point of what you’re doing

You'll need to open the file in Preview and start a print so that you can set the point where KM will click to start a PDF but clicking on Get in KM then going to Preview and putting the cursor over the PDF button.