How can I record a action in InDesign that opens, updates, and exports a PDF?

[Brian_R_-_CRi]

I need to open multiple documents (over 500) and export them as separate PDF's in a timely manner.

It would take hours to open and export each document... Is there a EASY BUTTON for this task?

I have heard of products or adobe features that allow you to repeat an action, but I need to open existing documents and export them without clicking over a billion times!

Help me Adobe World!

[BobLevine]

Try the scripting forum.

[Kasyan Servetsky · Accepted solution]

There was an attempt by Rorohiko to develop the Action Recorder for InDesign.

Here is the Batch-process (convert/export) documents script by Peter Kahrel which should be enough for your task.

You mentioned that you want to 'update' something, but it's not clear to me what exactly you want to update: modified links, or InDesign documents from the old version to a newer one. If Peter's script is not what you want, check out my Batch process scripts script. It's very easy to write a simple script to 'update & export PDFs' which will be triggered by the above mentioned script, but you have to provide more details: pdf-preset to use, the the path to the folder for PDFs, your InDesign version.

— Kas