I need Outlook VBA to sendkeys to an open doc in Acrobat Reader....

[ARiles]

I written a Sub/Script for Outlook to print 2 copies of an attached PDF. I now need to get Outlook VBA to send keys (Select all, Copy and Close..."^A", "^C", "^W") to the already open PDF in AcrobatReader.

I have tried all the standard methods and none have worked. See below:

Version 1:

Dim xAcrobat As Variant
xAcrobat = Shell("C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe", vbNormalFocus)
AppActivate xAcrobat
Application.wait (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:01"))
Application.SendKeys "{^A}", True
Application.SendKeys "{^C}", True
Application.SendKeys "{^W}", True

Version 2:

Shell "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat DC\Acrobat\Acrobat.exe", vbNormalFocus
SendKeys "^A", True
SendKeys "^C", True
SendKeys "^W", True

Outlook does not seem to send the keystrokes to acrobat.

The end goal is to have the copied text from the PDF be run in an excel workbook I created to use that text to create and print "audit sheets" we use for our manufacturing process.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[shknbk2]

Welcome to the forum.

This worked for me using Excel. No braces, also not caps on A, C, W. With caps, it didn't work. My PDF file started with "2021-01", so that is why my AppActivate has that. I already had Adobe open, so I didn't need to include the Shell command like you did.

After the PDF closed, I opened Notepad and successfully pasted the text from the PDF.

    AppActivate "2021-01"
    Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:01"))
    Application.SendKeys "^a", True
    Application.SendKeys "^c", True
    Application.SendKeys "^w", True

 

[ARiles]

Welcome to the forum.

This worked for me using Excel. No braces, also not caps on A, C, W. With caps, it didn't work. My PDF file started with "2021-01", so that is why my AppActivate has that. I already had Adobe open, so I didn't need to include the Shell command like you did.

After the PDF closed, I opened Notepad and successfully pasted the text from the PDF.

    AppActivate "2021-01"
    Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("00:00:01"))
    Application.SendKeys "^a", True
    Application.SendKeys "^c", True
    Application.SendKeys "^w", True

Thanks for the reply. You are correct that method works great in Excel. My problem is it does not work in Outlook at all. I wonder if there is some "security" feature that Microsoft placed in Outlook to keep it from doing the "sendkeys".

 

[RoryA]

Outlook's object model does not have sendkeys.

 

[Dan_W]

AS above, Outlooks object model does not allow for SendKeys, but you could always use the WScript COM Object ( as below). The following example assumes you are running the code from the VBIDE, and will first SendKeys the shortcut to put the cursor in the Immediate Window. It will pause 2 seconds, and then it will use SendKeys to type "Hello World". Hope this helps.

Sub NewSendKeys()
    Dim WSHShell  As Object
    Set WSHShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    Pause 1
    WSHShell.SendKeys "^g"
    Pause 2
    WSHShell.SendKeys "Hello World"
    Set WSHShell = Nothing
End Sub
Sub Pause(Optional ByVal Period As Single = 2)
    Period = Period + Timer
    Do
        DoEvents
    Loop Until Period < Timer
End Sub