How to search PDFs and extract matching pages with Automator? I am trying to make an Automator workflow that will alllow me to:


Specify a folder to run the actions on 
Search all PDF files in that folder for a certain word (my client's name) 
Create a new PDF file with just those pages on which my client's name appears
Save that file on the desktop




Thus far, I can do steps 1 and 2. But is there any way to see what pages the matches were on or to create a new PDF for the matching pages?
I realise this is a year after you asked the question but I liked the challenge. So, in summary this is how I would accomplish this...


For every PDF in folder, convert it to Text.
Use a perl command to search the text files for keyword and return the page number(s).
Use command line tool to extract page(s) from PDF.
Merge extracted pages.


You can do the first part easily enough with applescript/automator. 

The perl command to get the page numbers is:

perl -ne 'print "$1$2" if /blah/ .. /--- Page (\d+) ---(\n)/' 

The command tool to use to extract pages from PDF file can be found at
users.skynet.be/tools/ 

Finally to merge the single pages can be done with automator or the above tools as well.

Hope this helps.