''' -------------------------------------------------------------------
''' <summary>
''' Obtain the text control of interest from the target application.
''' </summary>
''' <param name="targetApp">
''' The target application.
''' </param>
''' <returns>
''' An AutomationElement. representing a text control.
''' </returns>
''' -------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Function GetTextElement(ByVal targetApp As AutomationElement) As AutomationElement
    ' The control type we're looking for; in this case 'Document'
    Dim cond1 As PropertyCondition = _
        New PropertyCondition( _
        AutomationElement.ControlTypeProperty, _
        ControlType.Document)

    ' The control pattern of interest; in this case 'TextPattern'.
    Dim cond2 As PropertyCondition = _
        New PropertyCondition( _
        AutomationElement.IsTextPatternAvailableProperty, _
        True)

    Dim textCondition As AndCondition = New AndCondition(cond1, cond2)

    Dim targetTextElement As AutomationElement = _
        targetApp.FindFirst(TreeScope.Descendants, textCondition)

    ' If targetText is null then a suitable text control was not found.
    Return targetTextElement
End Function

''' -------------------------------------------------------------------
''' <summary>
''' Obtains a text range spanning an embedded child 
''' of a document control and displays the content of the range.
''' </summary>
''' <param name="targetTextElement">
''' The AutomationElement. representing a text control.
''' </param>
''' -------------------------------------------------------------------
Private Sub GetRangeFromChild( _
ByVal targetTextElement As AutomationElement)
    Dim textPattern As TextPattern = _
    DirectCast( _
    targetTextElement.GetCurrentPattern(textPattern.Pattern), _
    TextPattern)

    If (textPattern Is Nothing) Then
        ' Target control doesn't support TextPattern.
        Return
    End If

    ' Obtain a text range spanning the entire document.
    Dim textRange As TextPatternRange = textPattern.DocumentRange

    ' Retrieve the embedded objects within the range.
    Dim embeddedObjects() As AutomationElement = textRange.GetChildren()

    Dim embeddedObject As AutomationElement
    For Each embeddedObject In embeddedObjects
        If (embeddedObject.GetCurrentPropertyValue( _
            AutomationElement.IsTextPatternAvailableProperty) = True) Then
            ' For full functionality a secondary TextPattern should
            ' be obtained from the embedded object.
            ' embeddedObject must be a child of the text provider.
            Dim embeddedObjectRange As TextPatternRange = _
            textPattern.RangeFromChild(embeddedObject)
            ' GetText(-1) retrieves all text in the range.
            ' Typically a more limited amount of text would be 
            ' retrieved for performance and security reasons.
            Console.WriteLine(embeddedObjectRange.GetText(-1))
        End If
    Next
End Sub