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Web Query, Part Two

 
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This lessons follows on from the previous one

A Second Web Query for Microsoft Excel

 

The problem with the spreadsheet in the previous section is that it looks a little dull. This second web page you're going to download into Excel is little more colourful. So do the following:

  • Click on Sheet 2 of your spreadsheet, and click inside cell A1
  • Run a Web Query just like you did in the previous section: Data > Get External Data > New Web Query
  • This time, when the dialogue box pops up, type in this new address:

http://www.homeandlearn.co.uk/ME/webquery2.htm

  • In section 2 of the dialogue box, select "The entire page"
  • In section 3 of the dialogue box, select "Full HTML formatting"
  • Click the OK button
  • Click OK in the next dialogue box that asks you where you want to put the data (=$A$1)
  • Excel will place the data from the new web page into sheet 2 of your spreadsheet

Although the table itself might look nice and bright, that text heading looks chopped of. Your heading might look like the following one:

The reason it's chopped of is because the cells on row 1 are not formatted properly. If you highlight row 1, from A1 to G1, and then click Format > Cells from the menu bar, you can merge all those cells, and centre the text (Alignment tab strip, centre, tick box at bottom "Merge Cells".)

The image below shows a tidied up version of the downloaded spreadsheet (you can do all the cell formatting before you download):

And that's all there is to the basics of downloading data from the internet and importing it into an Excel worksheet.

 

In the next part, we take a look at adding hyperlinks to your spreadsheets.

 

Learn how to add a Hyperlink to a spreadsheet -->