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Can we use jQuery in JavaScript action with PAD? Help needed

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Posted on by JES1

Hello everyone,

I'm working on an html table with links where I keep on extracting data using standard and custom PAD/jQuery selectors.
To loop through all the rows I basically extract the id of the link/anchor tag which has the row number needed. The issue is that sometimes the next row number increases or decreases to a number that doesn't make sense from a logical perspective
eg. 1,2,3,4,300,301,302,1,5,10 (Probably because the data is coming from other tables, which I can't really access)

So I wonder if there's a way to select the closest anchor tag, or maybe the next element with an anchor tag using jQuery selectors and without using the JavaScript action.

for instance, with JS code we can do something close to:
1. element.next('a')

element:contains(SomeContent).next('a')
+ whatever we wish to do with jQuery

if we can't do it with custom selectors, would I be able to use that run JavaScript action with jQuery?

Any ideas?

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Power Automate Desktop

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Nived_Nambiar 18,138 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @JES1

I hope you can give a try with this jquery selector in PAD

element:contains(text) + a

For example, i have a span element with text Data and just next to it there is an anchor element (a)
To select the a tag based on span element text , we will use this jquery selector 🙂
span:contains("Data") + a

Hope it helps 🙂
Mark it as solution if it resolves your query

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JES1 4 on at

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Hi Nived,
Thanks for your answer.

That won't work, as I mentioned I'm working on a table and the next element won't be simply the anchor tag.Instead at a very minimum it'd be another tr > td an then any containers for the link (e.g. div > a).
It could also start having :eq, for instance tr:eq(2) and then the rest of the tree to get to the link.
Using jQuery methods as I mentioned before could simplify things but I can't use them with custom selectors and apparently when I use them.inside of that run Javascript action I get nothing back.
Even when I test queries on the browser console they run just fine but not in PAD. That's could be a syntax issue or maybe jQuery functions won't work at all.

Anyway, that's why your solution won't work.

Thanks again✌🏻

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Nived_Nambiar 18,138 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at

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Hi @JES1

could you show me the html structure screenshot, i think by looking at the structure , i can understand properly what you need 🙂

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Pavel_NaNoi 1,074 on at

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Sounds like a job for the ":has" selector I think?
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:has

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JES1 4 on at

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Thanks, everyone!
I guess we should make this clear to everyone that ends up seeing this post:

jQuery doesn't come with PAD by default, what we're using is simply CSS Selectors, but apparently, it can be installed and configured as a third-party library. E.g. Download jQuery files, add them to your PAD project folder, and then use it in that run JavaScript action in PAD.

I haven't tried that yet for the record.

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waynewalls 74 on at

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You can also install jQuery using the PAD Run JavaScript action -- if the Content Security Policy of the page will allow it.

The first action below checks to see if jQuery is already loaded and if not loads it from the Google API repository. The second action checks to see that jQuery was in fact loaded and returns the jQuery version.
WebAutomation.ExecuteJavascript BrowserInstance: Browser Javascript&colon; $'''function ExecuteScript() { var padElement, padChild, padElement, padReturn; if (!window.hasOwnProperty(\"jQuery\")) { padElement = document.createElement(\"script\"); padElement.type = \"text/javascript\"; padElement.src=\"https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.6.0/jquery.min.js\"; padChild = document.body.appendChild(padElement); padReturn = padChild.outerHTML } else padReturn = (\"jQuery already available\"); return padReturn }''' Result=> Result
WebAutomation.ExecuteJavascript BrowserInstance: Browser Javascript&colon; $'''function ExecuteScript() { var padJqVersion, padJqAvailable; if (window.hasOwnProperty(\"jQuery\")) padjQAvailable = \"available\" else padJqAvailable = \"not available\"; padJqVersion = ($().jquery); return (\"jQuery version \" + padJqVersion + \" is \" + padjQAvailable) }''' Result=> Result2
Both of the above assume that you have a BrowserInstance open and stored in the variable %Browser%.

In my experience, jQuery will not be available until the first action completes and returns to the flow. That's why I have showed testing jQuery in a second separate subsequent action. If anyone knows why this happens I would be interested. It may have something to do with the way the browser extension injects scripts into the page.

I would also be interested if anyone knows how to configure jQuery as a third party library in your PAD Project Folder as @JES1 has described.

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