Automation and Scripting

What you will learn

• Rename, sort and process files in bulk
• Scrape web pages and fill in documents
• Send email and run jobs on a schedule

Syllabus

51 lessons in 6 sections. Take them in order, or open any lesson directly.

1. Python Automation and Scripting2 min
2. Safety Warning (Dry Runs and Backups)2 min, 1 exercise
3. Phase 1: OS & File System Automation10 lessons

   1. The Power of Scripting - Why Automate?2 min
   2. The os Module - Navigating Directories1 min, 3 exercises
   3. The shutil Module - Copying, Moving, and Deleting1 min, 3 exercises
   4. Pattern Matching with glob1 min, 3 exercises
   5. Managing Paths with pathlib2 min, 3 exercises
   6. Automating File Backups2 min, 3 exercises
   7. Batch Renaming Files Script1 min, 3 exercises
   8. Searching Files by Content/Extension2 min, 3 exercises
   9. Monitoring File System Changes (Watchdog)2 min
   10. Compressing Files (Zip and Tar archives)1 min, 3 exercises
4. Phase 2: Office & Productivity Automation8 lessons

   1. Working with Excel - openpyxl Basics2 min, 3 exercises
   2. Automating Excel Formulas and Charts2 min
   3. Processing CSV Data with the csv Module2 min, 3 exercises
   4. PDF Manipulation - Merging and Splitting2 min
   5. Extracting Text from PDFs2 min, 3 exercises
   6. Creating Word Documents with python-docx2 min
   7. Automating Google Sheets API2 min
   8. Generating Automated Reports2 min, 3 exercises
5. Phase 3: Web Automation & Scraping11 lessons

   1. Introduction to Web Scraping Ethics & robots.txt2 min, 1 exercise
   2. HTTP Requests with the requests Library2 min, 3 exercises
   3. Parsing HTML with BeautifulSoup2 min, 3 exercises
   4. CSS Selectors vs XPath2 min
   5. Downloading Images and Media in Bulk2 min
   6. Introduction to Selenium WebDriver2 min, 3 exercises
   7. Handling Web Forms and Buttons2 min
   8. Wait Times - Implicit vs Explicit Waits2 min
   9. Scraping Dynamic JavaScript Websites2 min
   10. Automating Browser Tasks (Headless Mode)2 min
   11. Building a Price Tracker Bot2 min, 1 exercise
6. Phase 4: Communication Automation7 lessons

   1. Sending Emails with smtplib2 min, 3 exercises
   2. Sending HTML Emails and Attachments2 min, 1 exercise
   3. Automating Outlook with pywin322 min
   4. Sending SMS with Twilio API2 min
   5. Telegram Bot Integration for Notifications2 min
   6. Slack Webhooks for System Alerts2 min
   7. Automating Discord Messages2 min
7. Phase 5: GUI & System Control6 lessons

   1. Introduction to pyautogui2 min
   2. Controlling Mouse Movements and Clicks2 min
   3. Keyboard Automation - Typing and Hotkeys2 min
   4. Screen Recognition (Locating Images on Screen)2 min
   5. Creating Simple Message Box Alerts2 min
   6. Automating Desktop Applications2 min
8. Phase 6: Task Scheduling & Deployment7 lessons

   1. Running Scripts from the Command Line1 min, 3 exercises
   2. Using Arguments with argparse3 min, 3 exercises
   3. Scheduling Scripts on Windows (Task Scheduler)3 min
   4. Scheduling Scripts on Linux/Mac (Cron Jobs)3 min, 3 exercises
   5. Using the schedule Library for Python2 min, 3 exercises
   6. Logging for Automation Scripts (logging module)3 min, 3 exercises
   7. Handling Errors in Long-Running Scripts2 min, 1 exercise