Selenium - How to automatically Download PDF Files of Web Page if there is no Download Button?

Question

1.) I'am trying to Download the Article PDF Files from multiple web pages to a local folder on the computer. But there is now "Download PDF" button on the web pages. What would be the Quickest and Best way to do this with Selenium ?

2.) One way I have thought of is to use the Keyboard Keys for Print, "Control"- "P", but inside Selenium, none of the Keyboard Keys are working when i run the program. The Code is below,

from selenium import webdriver
import chromedriver_binary  # Adds chromedriver binary to path
from selenium.webdriver.common.by import By
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
from selenium.webdriver.common.action_chains import ActionChains
import time


driver = webdriver.Chrome()
driver.maximize_window() # Makes Full Screen of the Window Browser
time.sleep(4)

url = 'https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-warren-buffett-doesnt-buy 152303112.html'                                                                           
driver.get(url)
time.sleep(10)

a = ActionChains(driver)
a.key_down(Keys.CONTROL).send_keys('P').key_up(Keys.CONTROL).perform()
 

Answer 1

You can do that by using ChromeOptions() and have a setting id, origin etc.

Also you can give savefile.default_directory to save the PDF file.

Code:

import time

from selenium import webdriver
import json

Options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
settings = {
       "recentDestinations": [{
            "id": "Save as PDF",
            "origin": "local",
            "account": "",
        }],
        "selectedDestinationId": "Save as PDF",
        "version": 2
    }
prefs = {'printing.print_preview_sticky_settings.appState': json.dumps(settings), 'savefile.default_directory': 'C:\\Users\\****\\path\\'}
Options.add_experimental_option('prefs', prefs)
Options.add_argument('--kiosk-printing')
driver_path = r'C:\\Users\\***\\***\\chromedriver.exe'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=Options, executable_path=driver_path)

driver.maximize_window() # Makes Full Screen of the Window Browser
time.sleep(4)

url = 'https://finance.yahoo.com/'
driver.get(url)
time.sleep(2)

driver.execute_script('window.print();')

Output:

You should see a PDF file in the directory like this:

Update:

driver_path = r'C:\\Users\\***\***\\chromedriver.exe'
driver = webdriver.Chrome(options=Options, executable_path=driver_path)