Excel vba for internet explorer

This page contains coding examples for automating Internet Explorer (IE) using VBA.

** Update 6/7/2019: Currently, the best way to achieve web automation with VBA is by using Selenium. This article DOES NOT cover Selenium. The examples below will work, and might be sufficient for your needs. However, if you have more advanced needs or want to become an expert with web automation, I strongly recommend using Selenium instead. Dan Strong’s course on Web Automation (discount available through this link) is a fantastic resource to learn Selenium:

Navigate to a Webpage with VBA

The First piece of code opens IE and navigates to a website. The second piece of code opens IE, navigates to a website and interacts with an input box.

Sub Automate_IE_Load_Page()
'This will load a webpage in IE
    Dim i As Long
    Dim URL As String
    Dim IE As Object
    Dim objElement As Object
    Dim objCollection As Object
 
    'Create InternetExplorer Object
    Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
 
    'Set IE.Visible = True to make IE visible, or False for IE to run in the background
    IE.Visible = True
 
    'Define URL
    URL = "https://www.automateexcel.com/excel/"
 
    'Navigate to URL
    IE.Navigate URL
 
    ' Statusbar let's user know website is loading
    Application.StatusBar = URL & " is loading. Please wait..."
 
    ' Wait while IE loading...
    'IE ReadyState = 4 signifies the webpage has loaded (the first loop is set to avoid inadvertently skipping over the second loop)
    Do While IE.ReadyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop   'Do While
    Do Until IE.ReadyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop   'Do Until
 
    'Webpage Loaded
    Application.StatusBar = URL & " Loaded"
    
    'Unload IE
    Set IE = Nothing
    Set objElement = Nothing
    Set objCollection = Nothing
    
End Sub

A very common problem people encounter when working with IE in VBA is VBA attempting to run code before Internet Explorer has fully loaded. By using this code, you tell VBA to repeat a loop until IE is ready (IE.ReadyState – 4).

    ' Wait while IE loading...
    'IE ReadyState = 4 signifies the webpage has loaded (the first loop is set to avoid inadvertently skipping over the second loop)
    Do While IE.ReadyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop   'Do While
    Do Until IE.ReadyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop   'Do Until

Also, note this line of code:

IE.Visible = TRUE

This code toggles whether IE runs in background or in the foreground.

Open URL and Enter Data in Form Using VBA

'This Must go at the top of your module. It's used to set IE as the active window
Public Declare Function SetForegroundWindow Lib "user32" (ByVal HWND As Long) As Long

Sub Automate_IE_Enter_Data()
'This will load a webpage in IE
    Dim i As Long
    Dim URL As String
    Dim IE As Object
    Dim objElement As Object
    Dim objCollection As Object
    Dim HWNDSrc As Long
    
 
    'Create InternetExplorer Object
    Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
 
    'Set IE.Visible = True to make IE visible, or False for IE to run in the background
    IE.Visible = True
 
    'Define URL
    URL = "https://www.automateexcel.com/vba"
 
    'Navigate to URL
    IE.Navigate URL
 
    ' Statusbar let's user know website is loading
    Application.StatusBar = URL & " is loading. Please wait..."
 
    ' Wait while IE loading...
    'IE ReadyState = 4 signifies the webpage has loaded (the first loop is set to avoid inadvertantly skipping over the second loop)
    Do While IE.ReadyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop
    Do Until IE.ReadyState = 4: DoEvents: Loop
 
    'Webpage Loaded
    Application.StatusBar = URL & " Loaded"
    
    'Get Window ID for IE so we can set it as activate window
    HWNDSrc = IE.HWND
    'Set IE as Active Window
    SetForegroundWindow HWNDSrc
    
    
    'Find & Fill Out Input Box
    n = 0
    
    For Each itm In IE.document.all
        If itm = "[object HTMLInputElement]" Then
        n = n + 1
            If n = 3 Then
                itm.Value = "orksheet"
                itm.Focus                             'Activates the Input box (makes the cursor appear)
                Application.SendKeys "{w}", True      'Simulates a 'W' keystroke. True tells VBA to wait
                                                      'until keystroke has finished before proceeding, allowing
                                                      'javascript on page to run and filter the table
                GoTo endmacro
            End If
        End If
    Next
    
    'Unload IE
endmacro:
    Set IE = Nothing
    Set objElement = Nothing
    Set objCollection = Nothing
    
End Sub

GetElement in IE using VBA

Interacting with objects in Internet Explorer can often be a pain. You need to identify what specific object to work with. In the above code, we are looking for the 3rd instance of “[object HTMLInputElement]” (an input form). Then we enter “orksheet” into the input form (itm.value = “orksheet”), move the cursor into the input form (itm.focus), and type “w”. Typing “w” is necessary in this instance to activate the javascript used to filter the table.

There are more direct methods to selecting objects, however this method should work if all else fails.

To use those other methods you will want to use the following options:

IE.document.getelementbyid("ID").value = "value"       'Find by ID
IE.document.getelementsbytagname("ID").value = "value"        'Find by tag
IE.document.getelementsbyclassname("ID").value = "value"      'Find by class
IE.document.getelementsbyname("ID").value = "value"           'Find by name

You can run into problems when using these methods if there are more than one element with the same name. By using a loop (as in the sample code above), you can specify which instance of the element to use.

Interact with IE using VBA

In the code above we use the event: Focus (itm.focus) to activate the cursor in the form.

You can find more examples of Object / Element Events, Methods, and Properties here: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms535893(v=vs.85).aspx

Not all of these will work with every object / element and there may be quite a bit of trial and error when interacting with objects in IE.

Sendkeys to Internet Explorer

We used the Sendkeys command in the code above:

Application.SendKeys "{w}", True

Sendkeys should generally be a last resort. You should usually be able to interact with objects directly, however sometimes it’s easier to just use the Sendkeys command. Sendkeys is essentially the same as typing with the keyboard. You need to make sure the correct windows and objects are selecting before proceeding. Sendkeys can also trigger events that run based on user interaction on the web. In the example above, we use Sendkeys to activate the Javascript filter in the Table that we use on the web page.

Sendkeys has two inputs:
1. the key to enter (generally surrounded by {}… {enter}, {q}….)
2. Wait until Sendkeys has completed before proceeding TRUE/FALSE. You will generally want this set to TRUE when working with Internet Explorer.

Run Internet Explorer in Background

To run Internet Explorer in the background you need to do two things:

1. Call the macro containing the IE code with Application.Run so the macro runs in the background as you continue working:

Application.Run ("Automate_IE_Load_Page")

Note: This code could potentially interrupt your work, or your work could interfere with the code. For example, if you use SendKeys, Sendkeys may send a keystroke to the wrong application. Be very careful with this.
2. Hide IE:

IE.Visible = False

Selenium & VBA

If you found this article useful, you might want to check out Dan Strong’s course on Web Automation. It covers how to use Selenium with VBA.

Testimonial from one of Dan’s students

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Its integration with Windows allows control of Internet Explorer in a number of surprising ways using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) script from any application that supports it, such as Word, Outlook or Excel.

Its integration with Windows allows control of Internet Explorer in a number of surprising ways using Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) script from any application that supports it, such as Word, Outlook or Excel.

VBA automation — especially directly automating a browser like IE as you’ll see in this article — is exactly the sort of thing that elevates VBA from a convenient programming script into a powerful automation language. What makes it so awesome is the fact that many applications with controls or objects are created simply for the purpose of allowing you to integrate into it using the VBA programming language.

Through the years, we’ve showed you how to do some really cool stuff with VBA. For example, you can use it to send emails directly from inside Excel, you can automatically export Outlook tasks to an Excel spreadsheet, and you can even design your own Internet browser! It isn’t just Microsoft products either. There are 3rd-party applications from all sorts of vendors that have integrated VBA and compatible objects into their software — from Adobe Acrobat SDK to the ObjectARX SDK for AutoCAD — there are ways to «plug into» more applications than you probably realize.

The Idea

In this case, you’re going to connect Excel with IE. Why IE? Because Internet Explorer is so well integrated with the operating system that you really don’t have to do much to start using IE automation in VBA in other Microsoft products like Word or Excel. That’s the beauty of in. In this article you’ll see how this automation works, and in a future article you’ll see how to do nearly the same sort of thing with other  browsers.

What I’m going to show you here is a seemingly simple application, but it has plenty of applications where you could use this code to do a variety of cool things with your browser. The bottom line is that you’re going to create an Excel spreadsheet for the purpose of quickly saving all of your open browser windows with one click of a button. You can save this spreadsheet and walk away or turn off your computer.

Come back an hour or three days later, open the spreadsheet, click another button and those saved URLs will reopen in the same number of tabs as you had before.  The obvious cool use of this would be to store a whole library of common online workspace setups in Excel. Then you can restore that workspace with one click of a button without having to find all of those URLs again.

Automating Internet Explorer With VBA

The first thing to do is open Excel (I’m using 2013 — other versions are similar when it comes to VBA programming) and go to the Developer menu item. Inside there, you’ll see an insert button, which drops down all of your controls. Select the ActiveX pushbutton control and place it in your spreadsheet.

Presumably, you’ve already created a header for URLs if you want, but you don’t have to. This is really a URL storage library, so headers don’t really matter. Once you add the button, double click on it to open up the VBA editor. To the lower left, you’ll see the properties for your new pushbutton.

Rename it to something like cmdSaveURLs and set the Caption to «Save URLs» — indicating that this is the button to save all open URLs from your IE browser.

Next, go to the Tools menu at the top of the VBA editor, click on References in the menu, and scroll down the long list to find the «Microsoft Internet Controls» reference. Click the checkbox to the left of it, and then click OK.

Now you’re ready to roll. In the editor text area, you should see a line that reads «Private Sub cmdSaveURLs_Click()».  If you don’t see it, click the left dropdown box above the text area and find cmdSaveURLs in the list. Select it, and it’ll create the Click() function for you.

This is the code you want to insert into that function:

im IE As Object

Dim shellWins As New ShellWindows

Dim IE_TabURL As String

Dim intRowPosition As Integer



  


                       
  





intRowPosition = 2

For Each IE In shellWins

 IE_TabURL = IE.LocationURL

 If IE_TabURL <> vbNullString Then

 Sheet1.Range("A" & intRowPosition) = IE_TabURL

 intRowPosition = intRowPosition + 1

 End If

Next

Set shellWins = Nothing

Set IE = Nothing



  


                       
  

The Microsoft Scripting Runtime reference makes it so that you can access the ShellWindows object, which allows you to iterate through Windows and locate the instances of IE that you have open. This script will locate every URL you have open and write it to the Excel spreadsheet.

So, in theory if you’re working on something like blogging, and you have a few items open, like research windows, your blog editor, or a calendar window  — all of those tabs will be active. If you have to shut down or leave in a hurry, it can be a real pain to save where you are by copying all those URLs.

With your new Excel script, just click the Load URLs button, and it’ll load it right into the spreadsheet.

One caveat. If you aren’t using a header row, then you’ll want to change the line «intRowPosition=2» to «intRowPosition=1» and this will start at the first row rather than skipping the header row.

Opening Your Saved Browser Workspace

The next stage of this project is to go in the other direction. Click the «Load URLs» and have Excel launch IE and reload all of those URLs you have saved in the spreadsheet. Here’s what the cmdLoadURLs_Click() function should look like.

Dim IE As Object

Dim shellWins As New ShellWindows

Dim IE_TabURL As String

Dim intRowPosition As Integer

intRowPosition = 2

Set IE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

IE.Visible = True

IE.Navigate Sheet1.Range("A" & intRowPosition)



  


                       
  





While IE.Busy

 DoEvents

Wend

intRowPosition = intRowPosition + 1

While Sheet1.Range("A" & intRowPosition) <> vbNullString

 IE.Navigate Sheet1.Range("A" & intRowPosition), CLng(2048)

 While IE.Busy

 DoEvents

 Wend

 intRowPosition = intRowPosition + 1

Wend

Set IE = Nothing

There are a few steps here, but as you can see the code isn’t all that long or complicated. You create a new instance of IE, make it visible (this will open IE without loading an URL). Next it’ll load the first URL in the list.

The «While IE.Busy» part of the script waits until the page is fully loaded, and then move on to the rest of the URLs in your spreadsheet, opening a new tab (that’s what the «CLng(2048)» does, until it hits a blank cell in your spreadsheet, then it’ll stop opening new tabs. Here’s my IE browser with all four original tabs recovered using the Excel IE automation script.

Summary

My real goal of doing this was to have individual spreadsheets set up collections of tabs for tasks like researching and writing on my own blog, writing on MakeUseOf, doing SEO project work on the site, or a whole list of other roles or projects that require a saved collection of tabs that are always used.

Using a spreadsheet to store those setups and automating opening them in a browser can save a lot of time…and it’s actually pretty cool too.

Do you use any kind of IE automation in your VBA applications? See any other cool uses for this kind of IE control from Excel? Share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below!

Ok, Excel probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when needing to deal with web pages. But sometimes it’s necessary to access them from your Excel Application (or Word or any other MS Office Application). And it’s easier than you probably think.

To make the following code work, you’ll need to include the «Microsoft Internet Controls» library in your VBA references first.
Go to your Visual Basic Editor, Menu Tools -> References... and select the entry «Microsoft Internet Controls». If you can’t find it in the list of available references, search for a file named shdocvw.dll, usually to be found in your Windows directory, subfolder System32.

Alternatively, you can skip the referencing and use late binding, defining the pointer to the Internet Explorer instance as Object instead of SHDocVw.InternetExplorer in your VBA code. But then you’ll miss out on a lot of goodies like intellisense, full access to the object model via the object browser, access to the application’s built-in constants, and a popup listing all the supported constants upon typing…

Before you can do anything with the Internet Explorer, of course you’ll need one, and you’ll need something to address it. The following function achieves exactly this by creating a new instance of the Internet Explorer and returning a pointer to it.

'returns new instance of Internet Explorer
Function GetNewIE() As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
  'create new IE instance
  Set GetNewIE = New SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
  'start with a blank page
  GetNewIE.Navigate2 "about:Blank"
End Function

The next function loads a webpage:

'loads a web page and returns True or False depending on
'whether the page could be loaded or not
Function LoadWebPage(i_IE As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer, _
                     i_URL As String) As Boolean
  With i_IE
    'open page
    .Navigate i_URL
    'wait until IE finished loading the page
    Do While .ReadyState <> READYSTATE_COMPLETE
      Application.Wait Now + TimeValue("0:00:01")
    Loop
    'check if page could be loaded
    If .Document.URL = i_URL Then
      LoadWebPage = True
    End If
  End With
End Function

But what if the desired page has already been loaded and you just want to use it?
The following function returns a pointer to an already open instance of the Internet Explorer, if it has the desired page loaded. It’ll find it by comparing this page’s URL with the URLs of open pages in the Internet Explorer. If the page could not be found, the function returns Nothing.

'finds an open IE site by checking the URL
Function GetOpenIEByURL(ByVal i_URL As String) As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
Dim objShellWindows As New SHDocVw.ShellWindows

  'ignore errors when accessing the document property
  On Error Resume Next
  'loop over all Shell-Windows
  For Each GetOpenIEByURL In objShellWindows
    'if the document is of type HTMLDocument, it is an IE window
    If TypeName(GetOpenIEByURL.Document) = "HTMLDocument" Then
      'check the URL
      If GetOpenIEByURL.Document.URL = i_URL Then
        'leave, we found the right window
        Exit Function
      End If
    End If
  Next
End Function

Sometimes, when you enter an URL to load a page, you’ll get redirected, and thus the URL changes. Or your site uses frames and has the same URL for different content, so you can’t clearly identify a page by its URL. Then you could check the title of the page instead:

'finds an open IE site by checking the title
Function GetOpenIEByTitle(i_Title As String, _
                          Optional ByVal i_ExactMatch As Boolean = True) As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer
Dim objShellWindows As New SHDocVw.ShellWindows

  If i_ExactMatch = False Then i_Title = "*" & i_Title & "*"
  'ignore errors when accessing the document property
  On Error Resume Next
  'loop over all Shell-Windows
  For Each GetOpenIEByTitle In objShellWindows
    'if the document is of type HTMLDocument, it is an IE window
    If TypeName(GetOpenIEByTitle.Document) = "HTMLDocument" Then
      'check the title
      If GetOpenIEByTitle.Document.Title Like i_Title Then
        'leave, we found the right window
        Exit Function
      End If
    End If
  Next
End Function

(This was tested with IE6. Since IE7 uses tabs for different webpages instead of different windows, this code probably won’t work for IE7.)

Now that you have your web page (either by loading it new, or by accessing an already opened page), you can extract information from it, or manipulate the document or do whatever you want/need to do.
To make work with html documents easier, the Document object itself is just the root of a hierarchy of objects (and arrays of objects) that represent the different html tags in the document with all their properties and content. So if you need to address a certain element, you wont have to parse the html source, but you can quite easily address the element directly by its name or index.

A good introduction about how to work with the DOM (Document Object Model) and how to use it with forms in particular is given on this German site: Tagmodell des Webbrowsers

Here’s a link to a full reference about the document object and all elements in there.

Last but not least, a very good and comprehensive but also German site is the SELFHTML DOM reference

And because an example often is easier to understand than long-winded explanations: the following example goes to Wikipedia, enters a search string and navigates to the search result.

Sub ExplorerTest()
Const myPageTitle As String = "Wikipedia"
Const myPageURL As String = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page"
Const mySearchForm As String = "searchform"
Const mySearchInput As String = "searchInput"
Const mySearchTerm As String = "Document Object Model"
Const myButton As String = "Go"

Dim myIE As SHDocVw.InternetExplorer

  'check if page is already open
  Set myIE = GetOpenIEByTitle(myPageTitle, False)
  
  If myIE Is Nothing Then
    'page isn't open yet
    'create new IE instance
    Set myIE = GetNewIE
    'make IE window visible
    myIE.Visible = True
    'load page
    If LoadWebPage(myIE, myPageURL) = False Then
      'page wasn't loaded
      MsgBox "Couldn't open page"
      Exit Sub
    End If
  End If
  
  With myIE.Document.forms(mySearchForm)
    'enter search term in text field
    .elements(mySearchInput).Value = mySearchTerm
    'press button "Go"
    .elements(myButton).Click
  End With
       
End Sub

Of course an Internet Explorer Object doesn’t only contain the Document object. There’s a lot more, and you can find an overview by going to your VBA editor and pressing F2. This will open the object browser, where you can look for library SHDocVw, class InternetExplorer, and you’ll find a list and short description of all methods, properties and events of this class.

Его интеграция с Windows позволяет несколькими удивительными способами управлять Internet Explorer, используя сценарий Visual Basic для приложений (VBA) из любого приложения, которое его поддерживает, например Word, Outlook или Excel.

Автоматизация VBA — особенно прямая автоматизация браузера, такого как IE, как вы увидите в этой статье, — это как раз то, что превращает VBA из удобного сценария программирования в мощный язык автоматизации. Что делает его таким удивительным, так это тот факт, что многие приложения с элементами управления или объектами создаются просто для того, чтобы позволить вам интегрироваться в них с использованием языка программирования VBA.

За прошедшие годы мы показали вам, как делать действительно классные вещи с VBA. Например, вы можете использовать его для отправки электронных писем непосредственно из Excel. отправлять электронные письма из , вы можете автоматически экспортировать задачи Outlook в электронную таблицу Excel. , и вы даже можете создать свой собственный интернет-браузер. ! Это не только продукты Microsoft. Существуют сторонние приложения от разных производителей, которые интегрировали VBA и совместимые объекты в свое программное обеспечение — от Adobe Acrobat SDK до ObjectARX SDK для AutoCAD — есть способы «подключить» больше приложений, чем вы, вероятно, представляете.

Идея

В этом случае вы собираетесь подключить Excel с IE. Почему IE? Поскольку Internet Explorer настолько хорошо интегрирован с операционной системой, что вам действительно не нужно много делать, чтобы начать использовать автоматизацию IE в VBA в других продуктах Microsoft, таких как Word или Excel. В этом вся прелесть. В этой статье вы увидите, как работает эта автоматизация, а в следующей статье вы узнаете, как сделать то же самое с другими браузерами.

Здесь я покажу вам, казалось бы, простое приложение, но в нем есть множество приложений, в которых вы можете использовать этот код для выполнения множества интересных вещей с помощью браузера. Суть в том, что вы собираетесь создать электронную таблицу Excel с целью быстрого сохранения всех открытых окон браузера одним нажатием кнопки. Вы можете сохранить эту таблицу и уйти или выключить компьютер.

Вернитесь через час или три дня назад, откройте электронную таблицу, нажмите другую кнопку, и эти сохраненные URL-адреса снова откроются на том же количестве вкладок, что и раньше. Очевидным классным вариантом использования этого было бы хранить целую библиотеку общих сетевых настроек рабочего пространства в Excel. Затем вы можете восстановить это рабочее пространство одним нажатием кнопки без необходимости повторного поиска всех этих URL-адресов.

Автоматизация Internet Explorer с помощью VBA

Первое, что нужно сделать, это открыть Excel (я использую 2013 — другие версии похожи в программировании на VBA) и перейти в пункт меню Developer. Внутри вы увидите кнопку вставки, которая опускает все ваши элементы управления. Выберите элемент управления ActiveX и поместите его в электронную таблицу.

Предположительно, вы уже создали заголовок для URL, если хотите, но не обязаны. Это действительно библиотека хранения URL, поэтому заголовки не имеют большого значения. Как только вы добавите кнопку, дважды щелкните по ней, чтобы открыть редактор VBA. Внизу слева вы увидите свойства вашей новой кнопки.

  я IE как объект
 Dim shellWins As New ShellWindows
 Dim IE_TabURL As String
 Dim intRowPosition как целое число

 intRowPosition = 2

 Для каждого IE в shellWins
         IE_TabURL = IE.LocationURL
         Если IE_TabURL <> vbNullString Тогда
             Sheet1.Range ("A" & intRowPosition) = IE_TabURL
             intRowPosition = intRowPosition + 1
         End If

 следующий

 Установить shellWins = Nothing
 Установить IE = ничего 

  Тусклый IE как объект
 Dim shellWins As New ShellWindows
 Dim IE_TabURL As String
 Dim intRowPosition как целое число

 intRowPosition = 2

 Установить IE = CreateObject ("InternetExplorer.Application")
 IE.Visible = True

 IE.Navigate Sheet1.Range ("A" & intRowPosition)

 Пока IE.Busy
     DoEvents
 венед

 intRowPosition = intRowPosition + 1

 Хотя Sheet1.Range ("A" и intRowPosition) <> vbNullString
     IE.Navigate Sheet1.Range ("A" и intRowPosition), CLng (2048)

     Пока IE.Busy
         DoEvents
     венед

     intRowPosition = intRowPosition + 1
 венед

 Установить IE = ничего