Does anyone no of any way for VBA to interact with a search engine?

[dsatino]

I don't have a specific issue to solve, so this is more conceptual than anything.

I'm just curious if anyone knows of any methods in which I can capture a string in VBA and send that string via VBA to a search engine such as google.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thx

[MMcCarthy]

My initial instinct says it can be done but I honestly don't have a clue how :D

I'll see if I can find someone more likely to know the answer.

Mary

[Lysander]

I did something like this, but it was 6 years ago and I have long deleted the database. The way I did took two steps.

First, get your string from VBA. Lets say it is "Find Me"

You then need to create a text file on your hard disk, "Search.htm " and write to it the HTML codes to create a simple page with one reference on it.

Something like
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE></TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<A HREF="http://www.google.co.u k/search?q=find+m e">Search for Find Me</A><br><br>

</BODY>
</HTML>

and then launch your browser with this file.

(It's the code for launching the browser witht the filename that I have forgotten how to do)

Explorer, or Firefox whatever opens up with on link. Click on that link and you are in the google search engine.

Bit of a kludge, but it might give you some ideas.

[munkee]

To be fair you need to just take the string and pass it to a function:

Function Search(SearchIt As String)
Dim stringUrl As String
stringUrl = "http://www.google.com/search?q=" & SearchIt
FollowHyperlink stringUrl
End Function

You can run a simple test in the immediate window using: ?Search("testin g")

[ADezii]

Here is a little DB that I created, hopefully you will find it interesting, if not helpful. A User can specify either a single or multiple location parameters to Google Maps, which is then opened to display the appropriate Map. The Range is actually from a Country to a specific Street. It should be a simple matter, to change the context with VBA integration.

[dsatino]

Thanks everyone, these are all helpful.