Importing Data from the Web into Your Worksheets

Excel is fairly Web savvy, enabling you to copy and paste data from Web pages into your worksheets and have that data automatically updated when it changes on the Web. You can, for instance, create a worksheet that tracks your investments. By copying and pasting stock prices from the Web into your worksheet and telling Excel to set up a Web query, you can have Excel create a live link between your worksheet and the Web page. Here's what you do:

1. Start your Web browser, and open the page that has the data you want.

2. Highlight the data, and press Ctrl+C to copy it.

3. Click in the worksheet cell in which you want to paste the data.

4. Press Ctrl+V . The Paste icon appears outside the lower-right corner of the cell, as shown in Figure 14.9.

   Figure 14.9. The Paste icon enables you to create a live link between the pasted data and its source.

   

5. Click the Paste icon and click Create Refreshable Web Query . The New Web Query dialog box appears, displaying the Web page from which you copied the data.

6. Click the yellow-boxed arrow icon next to the table of data you want to import, as shown in Figure 14.10.

   Figure 14.10. Click the arrow next to the table you want to import.

   

7. Click the Import button.

To insert the latest data from the Web page into your worksheet, open Excel's Data menu and click Refresh External Data .

Tip

When you type a date, a person's name or e-mail address, or a financial symbol, Excel displays a tiny blue triangle in the lower-right corner of the entry's cell to indicate that a smart icon is available for the entry. Move the mouse pointer over the triangle to display the smart icon, and then click the smart icon and choose the desired option. For example, if you typed MSFT as a financial system, you can choose Insert Refreshable Stock Price to have the current stock price inserted in the cell or in a neighboring cell. The options vary depending on the type of entry.