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Terminal Emulator 80 character limit

  • Jun 29, 2026 1:56 PM UTC
  • 1 reply
  • 67 views

Hi everyone - I’m building an automation to read values in a column using the terminal emulator. The screen I’m reading is 131 characters across. I’ve figured out how to increase the visible width of the terminal emulator using some of the terminal emulator settings, but any attempt to use GetText with the entire screen or any character above column 80 results in an error. I’ve seen various fixed suggested elsewhere about turning on extended properties, but that results in my terminal not connecting at all. Has anyone else run into this situation? TIA

      1 reply

      Automation Anywhere Team
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      • devendeshpande
      • Automation Anywhere Team
      • Oct 15, 2026 7:05 PM UTC

      Option 1: 🔄 Use SendKey + Clipboard to Read Wide Screens (Workaround)

      If the host cannot be reconfigured and Extended Properties breaks the connection, use this workaround:

      1. Use Terminal Emulator: Set Cursor Position to place the cursor at the start of the data beyond column 80.
      2. Use SendKey to select text (e.g., Shift+End to select to end of line).
      3. Use SendKey: Ctrl+C to copy to clipboard.
      4. Use Clipboard: Get to retrieve the value into a variable.

      This bypasses the GetText column limitation entirely by using the terminal's own text selection mechanism.

      Option 2: 📜 Use GetText with Specific Row/Column/Length Parameters

      Instead of reading the entire screen, use GetText with ‘Lines with column range’

      • For data in columns 81–131, try reading in two separate chunks:
        • Chunk 1: Columns 1–80 (works fine)
        • Chunk 2: Try StartColumn = 81, Length = 51
      • If Chunk 2 still errors, the issue is confirmed as a hard 80-column limit in the package version you are using.
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