I am trying to automate (using RPA) a website that generates a PDF and opens it in a new tab. This particular website is behind a login.

The link looks like this:

href="pagename.cfm?args" target="_blank"

So the link is not directly to a PDF file, but it generates a PDF and opens it in a new tab.

The corporate standard PDF software is Nuance PDF. Therefore, in the new tab, the generated PDF opens inside a Nuance embedded frame. I am unable to interrogate inside that frame. (Not to mention unable to switch tabs inside the automation.)

The automation needs to save the generated PDF, which a user can do from the embedded Nuance frame by clicking the Save button (cannot interrogate that).

I can get the link URL from the link and open the link in the same tab using the Navigate method. That will prevent the new tab from opening. But then I can't do anything with the Nuance embedded frame and the new tab is not recognized as an HTML page, so it does not have a Navigate method, thus I can't go back to the previous page.

So we have the link, and the link will generate a PDF file, but it can't be used by itself due to the login session. I'm well-experienced in C# but not so much in RPA. Can a C# script use the login session that is already open in IE to process this link? Any idea how to do this?

Any insights are welcome.