pywin32 Illustrator Throwing Exception Error

[matthewsjc1]

I'm trying to use pywin32 to access Adobe Illustrator through COM. I'm able to access other apps like Photoshop and Excel fine, but no matter how I try to access Illustrator, it always throws the exception: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None).

The code:
import win32com.client as win32com
illApp = win32com.Dispatch("Illustrator.Application")

I can use the same code with other COM apps and it works fine. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thank you!

*PS This is my first post in this forum. I'm a long-time programmer (C/C++, .Net, etc) and recently started using Python for some projects at work. So far, I'm really liking it!

[Larz60+]

Please show entire, unaltered error traceback . Please use bbcode error tag.
Use tags around code as well.

[matthewsjc1]

Please show entire, unaltered error traceback . Please use bbcode error tag.
Use tags around code as well.

import win32com.client as win32com illApp = win32com.Dispatch("Illustrator.Application")

Error:
 Message=(-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None) Source=C:\Users\jaredm\Desktop\Python COM Test\Python_COM_Test.py StackTrace: File "C:\Users\jaredm\Desktop\Python COM Test\Python_COM_Test.py", line 3, in <module> illApp = win32com.Dispatch("Illustrator.Application")

I hope I did this right. I'm using VS2019 with Python 3.7.8

[matthewsjc1]

I'm sorry. I'm new to this. I misunderstood what you meant. I ran trackback.print_tb() and got:

Error:
]Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 81, in _GetGoodDispatch IDispatch = pythoncom.connect(IDispatch) pywintypes.com_error: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None) During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\runpy.py", line 193, in _run_module_as_main "__main__", mod_spec) File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code exec(code, run_globals) File "c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio\2019\community\common7\ide\extensions\microsoft\python\core\debugpy\__main__.py", line 45, in <module> cli.main() File "c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio\2019\community\common7\ide\extensions\microsoft\python\core\debugpy/..\debugpy\server\cli.py", line 430, in main run() File "c:\program files (x86)\microsoft visual studio\2019\community\common7\ide\extensions\microsoft\python\core\debugpy/..\debugpy\server\cli.py", line 267, in run_file runpy.run_path(options.target, run_name=compat.force_str("__main__")) File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\runpy.py", line 263, in run_path pkg_name=pkg_name, script_name=fname) File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\runpy.py", line 96, in _run_module_code mod_name, mod_spec, pkg_name, script_name) File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\runpy.py", line 85, in _run_code exec(code, run_globals) File "C:\Users\jaredm\Desktop\Python COM Test\Python_COM_Test.py", line 3, in <module> illApp = win32com.Dispatch("Illustrator.Application") File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\__init__.py", line 95, in Dispatch dispatch, userName = dynamic._GetGoodDispatchAndUserName(dispatch,userName,clsctx) File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 98, in _GetGoodDispatchAndUserName return (_GetGoodDispatch(IDispatch, clsctx), userName) File "C:\Users\jaredm\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\lib\site-packages\win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 83, in _GetGoodDispatch IDispatch = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance(IDispatch, None, clsctx, pythoncom.IID_IDispatch) pywintypes.com_error: (-2147221005, 'Invalid class string', None, None)

[matthewsjc1]

Is this what you were asking for Larz60+?

[Larz60+]

For the error, yes.
But there's more code?
Please read: https://python-forum.io/misc.php?action=help&hid=19

[matthewsjc1]

I actually figured out the issue! Illustrator's installation was either corrupt or that version (24.0.2) doesn't register its COM correctly. I installed a copy of the newest version and everything works perfectly.

Thanks,
Jared

[Larz60+]

Glad you solved the issue, thanks for sharing solution.