How to open up a program and press a key from a python script

Question

This is more of a theoretical question but not sure where to start.

I run my scripts inside of PyCharm but am trying to automate a process.

Before running the PyCharm script I do the following manual tasks:

1 - open an .exe program (from desktop)
2 - once the program opens i need to press the "Y" key to produce a spreadsheet to be used

And then I run the analysis script in PyCharm using the generated spreadsheet.

Is there anyway I can automate the first two steps from within a PyCharm Script?

Thanks very much!

Sulayman · Accepted Answer · 2020-09-18 02:50:36Z

1

You can start by installing the PyAutoGui module. pip install pyautogui from your command line. There's a lot of helpful functions here you can use but for your purpose pyautogui.press('y') should work fine. So if you try:

import pyautogui
from time import sleep
import subprocess

subprocess.Popen("directory to app's exe")
# Delay for app to load up
sleep(10)
pyautogui.press("Y")

edited Sep 18, 2020 at 2:50

answered Sep 18, 2020 at 2:36

Sulayman

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4 Comments

SOK Over a year ago

Thanks! this seems to work - do you know if there is a way to avoid a Y being then placed inside the code window in Pycharm when it runs?

Sulayman Over a year ago

i doubt there is. you have to specify the key you're pressing. Is that what you mean?

SOK Over a year ago

yeah it just puts a y in the program/subprocess but also inside my code in pycharm if thats where my cursor currently is. All good no big issue, thanks so much!

Sulayman Over a year ago

You should read Automating the boring stuff by Al Sweigart. It's explained in there, the module and most of it's functions.

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