[python-win32] Dispatch InternetExplorer.Application fails

[Gerdus van Zyl]

Have you seen www.htmltopdf.org?

Otherwise might I suggest http://www.openreport.org/; you could then
transform your XML into RML(xml reporting format) into a PDF. You can also
design RML with OpenOffice.

~Gerdus

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Rickey, Kyle W <
Kyle.Rickey at bakerhughes.com> wrote:

> Tim, thanks for your response. I realize where I've got this messed up.
>
> I had turned off Windows File Protection for
> C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer
> So that I could replace internet explorer with my own executable that
> calls firefox :) The reason for this is some of our proprietary software
> is hardcoded to launch files in IE, but there are advantages to using
> firefox instead.
>
> Anyway, that's a bit off topic. I restored the real IE and rebooted and
> now
> >> ie = win32com.client.Dispatch("InternetExplorer.Application")
> works as expected.
>
> I'm also checking out PAMIE but I'm beginning to think I may be going
> about this whole thing the wrong way.
>
> Basically, said software above generates reports as xml files. The xml
> file references an xsl file used to transform the report. This xml gets
> launched and transformed by IE.
>
> What we want to happen is a way to take that xml file and go to PDF. As
> it is now we have to print from IE to the Adobe Acrobat PDF printer.
> This is cumbersome for the amount of reports that need run. So here are
> some solutions I was considering:
>
> 1) COM into IE and load the xml, print it to PDF. Works, but we still
> get prompted for the file name to save the pdf as (my code could supply
> an appropriate name)
>
> 2) use some python libraries (libxml2, libxslt) to transform the xml to
> html. That part works but now how to I make a pdf from the html file?
>
> 3) COM into Adobe Acrobat and generate the pdf (no idea where to begin)
>
> 4) Rewrite entire reporting system to use pdf natively. Since the data
> is freely available in our SQL server, this would be possible, but very
> time consuming.
>
> I'm open to suggestions on a better way to go about this. Also, assuming
> I changed the registry to point to iexplore2 (original IE) would COM'ing
> into work?
>
> Kyle Rickey
> -----Original Message-----
> From: python-win32-bounces at python.org
> [mailto:python-win32-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Tim Golden
> Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 2:46 PM
> Cc: python-win32 at python.org
> Subject: Re: [python-win32] Dispatch InternetExplorer.Application fails
>
> Rickey, Kyle W wrote:
> > Whenever I try the following:
> >
> >>> import win32com.client
> >>> ie = win32com.client.Dispatch("InternetExplorer.Application")
> >
> > I get this traceback:
> >
> > Traceback (most recent call last):
> >   File "<interactive input>", line 1, in <module>
> >   File "C:\Python25\Lib\site-packages\win32com\client\__init__.py",
> line
> > 95, in Dispatch
> >     dispatch, userName =
> > dynamic._GetGoodDispatchAndUserName(dispatch,userName,clsctx)
> >   File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py",
> line
> > 98, in _GetGoodDispatchAndUserName
> >     return (_GetGoodDispatch(IDispatch, clsctx), userName)
> >   File "C:\Python25\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py",
> line
> > 78, in _GetGoodDispatch
> >     IDispatch = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance(IDispatch, None, clsctx,
> > pythoncom.IID_IDispatch)
> > com_error: (-2147024894, 'The system cannot find the file specified.',
> > None, None)
> >
> > Any ideas what would cause this? My end goal is to COM into IE and
> load
> > an xml file, then print it to PDF.
>
> FWIW, you might find it worth looking at PAMIE which uses COM
> the way you're doing, but which has already ironed out a few
> creases. That said, it doesn't really answer your question. Can
> you see what result this script gives:
>
> <code>
> import os
> import _winreg
>
> hKey = _winreg.OpenKey (
>   _winreg.HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,
>   r"InternetExplorer.Application\CLSID"
> )
> clsid, type = _winreg.QueryValueEx (hKey, "")
>
> print clsid
>
> hKey = _winreg.OpenKey (
>   _winreg.HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,
>   r"CLSID\%s\LocalServer32" % clsid
> )
> server, type = _winreg.QueryValueEx (hKey, "")
>
> print server, os.path.exists (server.strip ('"'))
>
> <code>
>
> This should, crudely, go through the same steps that
> the Dispatch process does and should show up whether
> IE's not where it thinks it should be. The strip ()
> on the server name is because, on my machine, the
> location is double-quoted, presumably because it's
> got an embedded space which would cause some problem
> in the mechanism.
>
> TJG
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