Other applications and Sendkey [Two Questions]

[steve case]

So far, i've gotten the following code:

SendKeys "%{tab}^a^c%{tab}"

to do my bidding and open another window, grab the contents and come back to Excel with it on the clipboard. It's a bit "clunky" for two reasons:

1. That code only seems to run by itself. if I put code before or after, it fails. If I try to call it up from another macro it fails )-:

2. I need to tell the users to make sure the target application is one [Alt-Tab] keystroke away.

I'm hoping someone here can help me with #2 above. Is there VBA code to activate a non-Excel window? For example, MyFile - Notepad or maybe XYZ-123 - InventoryControl or even MyPage - Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Any ideas on incorporating the Sendkey commands into more extensive codes would also be greatly appreciated.

It's pretty obvious what I'm trying to do here, so if I'm reinventing the wheel and Excel has as a "turn key" function, I really would like to know about it. (-:
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[steve case]

After a little search I found this:

http://www.mrexcel.com/board2/viewtopic.php?t=86074&highlight=sendkeys+appactivate

and a tour through VBA Help turns up:

Remarks

The AppActivate statement changes the focus to the named application or window but does not affect whether it is maximized or minimized. Focus moves from the activated application window when the user takes some action to change the focus or close the window. Use the Shell function to start an application and set the window style.

In determining which application to activate, title is compared to the title string of each running application. If there is no exact match, any application whose title string begins with title is activated. If there is more than one instance of the application named by title, one instance is arbitrarily activated.

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Now I expect I'll need help with sytax and figuring out what the "title String" is of the target applications.

That will wait until Monday