How to return the PrintArea from Excel in Python

Question

I'm trying to create a Python script (I'm using Python 3.7.3 with UTF-8 encoding on Windows 10 64-bit with Microsoft Office 365) that exports user selected worksheets to PDF, after the user has selected the Excel-files.

The Excel-files contain a lot of different settings for page setup and each worksheet in each Excel-file has a different page setup.

The task is therefore that I need to read all current variables regarding page setup to be able to assign them to the related variables for export.

The problem is when I'm trying to get Excel to return the current print area of the worksheet, which I can't figure out. As far as I understand I need to be able to read the current print area, to be able to set it for the export.

The Excel-files are a mixture of ".xlxs" and ".xlsm".

I've tried using all kind of different methods from the Excel VBA documentation, but nothing has worked so far e.g. by adding ".Range" and ".Address" etc.

I've also tried the ".UsedRange", but there is no significant difference in the cells that I can search for and I can't format them in a specific way so I can't use this.

I've also tried using the "IgnorePrintAreas = False" variable in the "ExportAsFixedFormat"-function, but that didn't work either.

#This is some of the script.
#I've left out irrelevant parts (dialogboxes etc.) just to make it shorter

#Import pywin32 and open Excel and selected workbook.
import win32com.client as win32

excel = win32.gencache.EnsureDispatch("Excel.Application")
excel.Visible = False

wb = excel.Workbooks.Open(wb_path)

#Select the 1st worksheet in the workbook
#This is just used for testing
wb.Sheets([1]).Select()

#This is the line I can't get to work
ps_prar = wb.ActiveSheet.PageSetup.PrintArea

#This is just used to test if I get the print area
print(ps_prar)

#This is exporting the selected worksheet to PDF
wb.Sheets([1]).Select()
wb.ActiveSheet.ExportAsFixedFormat(0, pdf_path, Quality = 0, IncludeDocProperties = True, IgnorePrintAreas = False, OpenAfterPublish = True)

#This closes the workbook and the Excel-file (although Excel sometimes still exists in Task Manager
wb.Close()
wb = None
excel.Quit()
excel = None

If I leave the code as above and try and open a test Excel-file (.xlxs) with a small PrintArea (A1:H8) the print function just gives me a blank line. If I add something to .PrintArea (as mentioned above) I get 1 of 2 errors:

"TypeError: 'str' object is not callable".

or

"ps_prar = wb.ActiveSheet.PageSetup.PrintArea.Range AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'Range'"

I'm hoping someone can help me in this matter - thanks, in advance.