Screen Scraping from Web Pages, Boilerplate Text Formation, Pasting into Word...

[chrischurch911]

I have a pretty manual task that is highly repetitive and am considering the Powerpack and Alfred to address.  But having read the workflow docs I do not know if it is possible.

 

I get alerts by email of firefighter deaths in the US.  When I click on a link in the email I get to a webpage that has some of the information I need to paste into a Word document with a specific format and boilerplate.  I would like to be able to pick up text that is always in a certain location, merge it with the boilerplate, pick up more text that is always in a certain position, merge it with the boilerplate, and the print the resulting letter.

The automation I see here is a) understanding what text to pick up, b) inserting into boilerplate text, c) picking up more text in the webpage, d) merging it into the boilerplate, e) pasting the entire formatted boilerplate into a Word document.  Printing the document would be a bonus, as I always end with this step.

So, for anyone that's familiar enough to respond, I appreciate any information.

 

Thanks!

 

 

Chris Church

Emergency Management Professional

[deanishe]

Hi @chrischurch911, welcome to the forum.

 

Alfred is a launcher. It’s concerned with (finding and) running things. It’s a great way to trigger your workflow when your email app or browser is open, but it can’t help you make any of the applications do any of those things you want them to do.

 

Indeed, based on your description, I don't think any automation app could help much. I'd say there's no way around writing code (some AppleScript, something else for text processing).

 

Nobody can give you a concrete answer, though, without knowing at least which specific applications you're talking about. Better yet, describe your problem in terms of inputs and outputs, not the actions you perform. Software is hopeless at using the user interface. Trying to emulate user interaction might work, but it will definitely be crap.

[chrischurch911]

Thanks.  Input... copy text selected in open webpage.  Merge the copied text into pre-formatted boilerplate (this could be in another document).  Output: paste the merged text into an existing or new Word document.

Appreciate the help.

[deanishe]

1 hour ago, chrischurch911 said:

Merge the copied text into pre-formatted boilerplate

 

You've skipped a lot of very important details there.