Script or workflow to modify find and replace text in clipboard

I need give unique names to many, many files as part of my job. I download dozens of PDFs from a research database which all come with the same name (date of download). I have to open the file, select the title, paste it into the filename field, and then go in and manually remove the colon and replace it with a dash.

That last part is really what's killing me since basically every file I download has a colon in the title that I want to paste! What I want is something that will modify the contents of my clipboard so I can just paste it into the naming field without having to manually replace the colon.

In short, I want any ":" in my clipboard to change to a "-" before I paste it.

Try:

set myText to the clipboard as «class utf8»
set {TID, text item delimiters} to {text item delimiters, ":"}
set myText to text items of myText
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to "-"
set the clipboard to myText as text
set text item delimiters to TID
tell application "System Events" to keystroke "v" using command down

Actually there is no need for Script.

Assuming you are opening the PDF files with Adobe Reader!

Coping the text (titles) containing the (:)

Selecting Save As and pasting the text.

Adobe will automatically change the (:) in to (-)