HT2488 How do I create a workflow in Automator or a script in AppleScripts to download an excel file from a specific webpage?

Question

I would like to create a workflow in Automator or a script in AppleScript (or a combination of the two), that opens Safari to a specified page and downloads an excel file from this page and saves the downloaded document to my desktop.
Is this something that be done? If so, how?
I have so far been able to build a workflow in Automator to open Safari and added an AppleScript that takes Safari to a specific page that has an Excel document.
I can't figure out where to go from here... Any help would be apprecitated.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Would you have the web address the excel sheet is on?
Is there a simular web page you could point to if not?
Would there be a copy of the file on an FTP page.  This would be easier. 
curl
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/mac-os-x-terminal-download-file/
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2012/04/curl-examples/
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
# Press return to run a command.
the curl is a terminal command ( Unix ).  It allows you to read a file off of the web.
man curl
provides cryptic information on the commnad curl.
press the space bar to advance  a page.
press letter to q to quit.
What you may have to is to read in the web page as a text file.  Go "fishing" through the page to find the excel file you need.  Once you find the file, you can use curl to read the file.
curl is a very full featured command.  (read complex to figure out ).
It is easier to diagnose problems with debug information. I suggest adding log statements to your script to see what is going on.  Here is an example.
    Author: rccharles
    For testing, run in the Script Editor.
      1) Click on the Event Log tab to see the output from the log statement
      2) Click on Run
    For running shell commands see:
    http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2002/tn2065.html
on run
    -- Write a message into the event log.
    log "  --- Starting on " & ((current date) as string) & " --- "
    --  debug lines
    set desktopPath to (path to desktop) as string
    log "desktopPath = " & desktopPath
    set unixDesktopPath to POSIX path of desktopPath
    log "unixDesktopPath = " & unixDesktopPath
    set quotedUnixDesktopPath to quoted form of unixDesktopPath
    log "quoted form is " & quotedUnixDesktopPath
    try
        set fromUnix to do shell script "ls -l  " & quotedUnixDesktopPath
        display dialog "ls -l of " & quotedUnixDesktopPath & return & fromUnix
    on error errMsg
        log "ls -l error..." & errMsg
    end try
end run