AppleScript, a powerful and free scripting tool included on every Macintosh, enables individuals, professionals, and businesses to save time and money by automating time-consuming, repetitive tasks. Hallmark, for example, used AppleScript to reduce the number of color proofs needed to create a greeting card from a range of 5 to 25 expensive proofs per card down to just two. In AppleScript 1-2-3, Apple's AppleScript product manager, Sal Soghoian, teaches beginners how to address nearly any automation task on the Macintosh. Broken down into three parts, the book starts by explaining AppleScript fundamentals through a series of hands-on how-tos designed to teach novice users how to write functional scripts. The second section expands on the knowledge gained in the first section with an in-depth examination of useful AppleScript tools and techniques, and the third section uses sample scripts to demonstrate how to automate Apple and third-party applications. Macintosh users looking to work more productively by automating their workflow will want this primer written by the leading expert in the field-no one knows more about AppleScript than Sal.

Sal Soghoian is the AppleScript product manager for Apple Computer. Renowned in the industry as an AppleScript guru and fervent evangelist of Apple's powerful scripting language, Soghoian first started using AppleScript in 1992 to automate publishing-related tasks at his service bureau.

Bill Cheeseman first discovered the joy of computing in 1964 and began writing programs himself in the 1970s. He is well known in the AppleScript community as Webmaster of The AppleScript Sourcebook (www.AppleScriptSourcebook.com), and in the Cocoa community as the author of Vermont Recipes (www.stepwise.com/Articles/VermontRecipes).