How to Access the .Document Property to Parse Web Pages Using the New Edge Browser Control

Mike Wolfe -

Daniel Pineault is one of the best resources for information on the new Edge-based browser control:

Resources for the Modern Edge-Based Browser Control in Microsoft Access
Looking for information or help with the modern Edge-based browser control in Microsoft Access? You’ve come to the right place.
No Longer SetMike Wolfe

You can find his articles on the web at DevHut.net and videos on his relatively new YouTube channel.  

The Missing .Object Property

One of the glaring omissions from the new Edge-based browser control is the .Object property, which provided direct access to a VBA Object with properties and methods to navigate the Document Object Model.

Luckily for us, Daniel spent many hours to discover what was ultimately a fairly simple workaround for this lost functionality.  He provides background information on the problem, along with his solutions and a few sample use cases in his article, Advanced Automation With The New Access Modern Web Browser Control:

"Now, with the previous web browser control, this wasn’t an issue.  We could simply pass the Object.Document to an MSHTML.HTMLDocument object and then we could work with that directly to our hearts content. Something like:"

Dim oHTMLDoc As MSHTML.HTMLDocument

Set oHTMLDoc = Me.WebBrowser0.Object.Document

"But with the loss of the Object.Document, this is no longer an option for us to perform automation on the displayed webpage."

Daniel Pineault's Workaround

Daniel spent a few days searching for a workaround, eventually discovering a solution.

"In the end, I used 2 HTMLDocuments!  One to write the content to, the other to actual automate.

"So, to reproduce what was previously possible, we simply do:"

Dim oHTMLFile         As MSHTML.IHTMLDocument
Dim oHTMLDoc          As MSHTML.HTMLDocument

Set oHTMLFile = New MSHTML.htmlDocument
oHTMLFile.Open
oHTMLFile.write ""
oHTMLFile.write Me.EdgeBrowser0.RetrieveJavascriptValue("document.getElementsByTagName('html')[0].outerHTML")
oHTMLFile.Close
	     
Set oHTMLDoc = oHTMLFile

"Once we have the oHTMLDoc object, we can then perform all the automation/parsing/analysis we previous could."

Daniel goes on to provide some additional sample code at his site.  Check it out and consider donating if you find the code useful:

Advanced Automation With The New Access Modern Web Browser Control
Demonstrating how we can convert the new Modern Web Browser content to an HTMLDocument so we can perform proper parsing and analysis.
Daniel Pineault

Cover image generated with DALL-E-3