VBA IE Automation - cannot find "export" element ID - vba

Question

I'm working in Microsoft Excel 2010 VBA and I'm trying to automate pdf report downloads. I can navigate to where I need to be but I'm stuck on the last step;
There's an "Export" element that behaves like a link. If I were to click on it, it would initiate a pdf download. I want to automate this and direct the download to a specified folder, but when I inspect the element it doesn't appear to have an element ID by which I can call it (ie. getElementById().Click).
I'm new to VBA IE automation. Does anyone have suggestions on how to initiate that "Export" function?
I can't share the full HTML detail, as it is for a site with sensitive data, but below are snippets of the HTML, my VBA code, and a screenshot of the HTML section that is in question:
<DIV style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; HEIGHT: 30px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana; DISPLAY: inline"><TABLE style="DISPLAY: inline" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0>
<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD height=28><SELECT id=PrintFormat><OPTION value="">Select a format</OPTION><OPTION selected value=Pdf>Acrobat (PDF) file</OPTION></SELECT></TD>
<TD width=4></TD>
<TD height=28><A onclick="if (document.getElementById('PrintFormat').value != '') {var url = document.getElementById('PrintFormat').value + 'Stream.aspx'; document.location.href = url;}" style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; TEXT-DECORATION: none; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana" href="#" shape="">Export</A></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></DIV>
My vba code;
Sub pdfdownloadautomation()
Set objIE = New InternetExplorer
objIE.Visible = True
objIE.navigate Sheet3.Range("A1").Value 'A1 contains url
objIE.document.getElementById("PrintFormat").Value = "Pdf"
'works fine to this point - just not sure how to call the export
objIE.document.getElementById("?").Click
End Sub
screenshot of inspected element in IE

Answer 1

You may try a CSS selector as follows to target the element. I can't test and don't know if there are parent frame/iframe/form tags to navigate. There appears to be one form element at least visible. Please provide the html including this form tag if possible. I have given variations without parent form and including parent form (which looks to be the case) - the assumption with the parent form element is that it is the first form element on the page.
ie.document.querySelector("td a[onclick^='if']").Click
Which might become:
ie.document.getElementsByTagName("form")(0).querySelector("td a[onclick^='if']").Click
The CSS selector is likely more complex than required but I am trying to localize using the visible cues in your image i.e. that there is an element with an a tag, that has onclick attribute starting with 'if', and is inside a parent td tag.
You could also gather all the a tag elements and loop until the Export innerText is found:
Dim list As Object, item As Object
Set list = ie.document.getElementsByTagName("a")
For Each item In list
If item.innerText = "Export" Then
item.Click
Exit For
End If
Next
Again, this may become
Set list = ie.document.getElementsByTagName("form")(0).getElementsByTagName("a")