Downloading the New York Times Crossword with Automator
Wordplay got me into doing crosswords. If Jon Stewart, Bill Clinton, and the Indigo Girls are all into something (not to mention Ken Burns) I’d be crazy not to be all up on that. I bought the yearly online subscription to the New York Times puzzle and have been doing (attempting) it pretty much every day.
I made a workflow with Apple’s Automator to download each day’s puzzle from the Times’ website and print it out. If you’re in a similar position as I (you have the subscription, Across Lite, and Mac OS X 10.4) then give it a try: Print Crossword.workflow.
The overall workflow is pretty straightforward:
Start with the New York Times crossword page URL
Download the page, with proper authentication
Find the URL to today’s puzzleDownload today’s puzzleOpen today’s puzzlePrint today’s puzzleThere were two tricky bits at #3 and #6, which I had to solve using shell scripting and AppleScript, respectively.
While Safari scripting does a fair amount (I was happy it took care of using my NYTimes.com cookie for the authentication), it doesn’t handle #3, which actually surprised me. The task I needed is to get the URL linked to with the words “Today’s Puzzle.