Grabbing text from software screen & placing it in excel

**frankcase** · 07-21-2009, 08:10 PM

Hi,

I have instrument software in a research university that puts a number of critical outputs that people must manually record over time (pressure, temperature). As the instrument is used or parts age, these parameters change over time.

I want to automatically grab this information as text from the software every 1hr and append it to a named excel file. I will then use excel to plot charts. If we can get this done automatically we can know when this expensive piece of equipment needs servicing.

Can you anybody help.
One option I am exploring is to use snagit com server in excel (http://www.techsmith.com/snagit/acce.../comserver.asp). This uses a screen text capture option but I would to use apply it to a specific window. But my computer coding is limited. If anyone knows a better way of doing this then I would be more than happy to hear about it

Frank

**shg** · 07-21-2009, 08:27 PM

Can't you read the data from whatever is producing it?

Or can't the data be read from a text file produced by ... whatever?

Or if people are manually recording it, why don't they record it into Excel?

Screen-scraping seems like the most convoluted way possible.

**frankcase** · 07-21-2009, 08:42 PM

The software does not allow selection of this data. We currently write it down every day and yes we type it into excel. This a time consuming and people forget to record time point etc leading to gaps in data that lead to critical instrument down time.

Frank

**frankcase** · 07-21-2009, 09:03 PM

Of course I am willing to hear other options or ideas :-)

**Phil_V** · 07-22-2009, 04:05 AM

Is there no way the original software could be modified to produce a log file? This would seem to be a far easier option than using screen grabbing software?

**frankcase** · 07-22-2009, 08:47 AM

This is a instrument based software with limited functionality (no logs, no copy pasting abilities etc. We either write down by hand into excel or have nothing. But this instrument is on 24/7. we need to record data points that give a indication of the problems with the instrument over time as well as instantly. This latent information is useful.

I know its convoluted but trust me the pain of dealing with instrument issues without clear data is even worse :-)

**shg** · 07-22-2009, 09:55 AM

I don't understand this: How is it that the measurements can somehow appear on a window on screen, but cannot instead be captured directly by Excel via the same interface that receives the data?

**Leith Ross** · 07-22-2009, 12:34 PM

Hello frankcase,

Are you by chance using LIMS?

**frankcase** · 07-24-2009, 11:05 PM

Not LIMS but the company software has values that are on the screen every second. The company believes this data is only useful for when trouble happens and does not care about finding out when the troubles begin to starts. Prevention is better than cure :-)

So it looks like I better finding how to use ocr or other options to get this done :-)

Frank