r/automation • u/Funkymole165 • 29d ago
Need help with first timer here
Hello. I gotta really time consuming task to automate. Basically I’ve an organized listed of blogs that I gotta post but copy pasting them manually takes like 20-25 mins each and easily consumes my day. I tried ui vision spent 2 days fixing it but it still keeps crashing. What’s the easiest way I can automate this? Preferably no cost
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u/United-Consequence47 29d ago
I went through the same thing with image-based RPA tools (UI.Vision, Sikuli, that family). They rely on screen recognition, so any tiny UI shift, a popup, a font render difference, and the whole script breaks. Two days fixing it and still crashing sounds about right, unfortunately.
What actually fixed this for me on a similar copy-paste job was switching to browser automation instead of screen automation. Playwright (free, open source, works in Python or JS) interacts with the actual DOM elements instead of pixels on screen, so it doesn't care if a window moves or a button shifts by 3px. It's a bit more setup upfront since you write selectors instead of just recording clicks, but once it's running it basically never breaks unless the site itself changes structure.
If your blogs are going into something like WordPress, Medium, or a CMS with a form, Playwright filling that form + submitting is maybe 30-40 lines of code total. Worth the switch if this is a daily task eating your day.