Thread: What's the best way to add an Excel Worksheet onto a web page?

I have created an excel worksheet which includes pictures and links to other websites, and I've been trying to find the best way to get it onto my website. I tried saving it in excel as a web page (HTML), but the pictures disappear. I saved it as an MHTML, but the links didn't work. I saved it as a PDF file, but the links didn't work, unless I first sent it to an ***** computer, saved it as a Numbers project, and saved that as a PDF, but that's kind of a long way around. I experimented with OLE and ActiveX and everything I could think of.

Right now on the website, tapelessvideo.com, the 'tapeless cameras compared' button does open up a 'file download' window which allows one to open or save the file, which is almost 1MB. But I'd rather that it just opened up a web page instead, and that it be a smaller file.

I'd appreciate any help. Thank you very much.
Gary

I'm not sure your usage of this page, but excel wasn't really intended to be a webpage, the same as word is not intended for that purpose. I suggest you rebuild the page using a webbuilder to add all the elements - as they put in the proper coding, etc to read the page on the web.

You can ftp your Excel to your public_html folder. Insert an IFrame on your page and then call for the Excel file.
http://www.yourdomain.com/file.xls

The problem with this method is that the viewer has to have Excel on their computer to view the file.

I appreciate your suggestions. I'll try them out and see what I can come up with.
Bethers, I'm really new at making websites, so when you say to use a webbuilder, I'm not sure exactly what that means. Do I just make a table on a web page and fill in the cells with the info I want?
Thanks,
Gary

Gary,
One thing you might "play around" with is the Ole object function in Blue Voda. It is usually bottom left tool.
It can add an Excel table to your site and when viewers see it it is a table of data, but not editable for them. However, when you open that page in BV; double click in the excel area and it becomes an active excel table. You can make changes to it, save the page and republish.

I don't know if it is what you really want, but might be worth trying it!

Forgot to give you a link to one I just published to see if it is what you want!

If you can use Excel - why don't you play in BV and discover all it can do. Many, many people are lost trying to do Excel LOL - so you shouldn't have any trouble using Blue Voda and building there. Watch the tutorials, play a little, then build.

Dave, I actually tried OLE object and I have to say that the Excel spreadsheet looked grreat. The only problem was that the links didn't work anymore. So I don't know if there is anything that can be done about that.

Yeah....that linking is a roadblock! There might be a way to overcome that, but it might be considered amaturish! But, if you like the idea of having the ability to operate the Excel sheet right there in BV; you can put a rectangle shape, transparent, over each of the linked cells and link it to the corresponding url. I tried it and it worked, at least in preview mode.

Otherwise, all I can think of is to recreate the entire sheet into a BV table!

Save the Excel as a web page. FTP the web page to your public_html folder (or wherever you need it).
Then use an IFrame on a page and link to the saved Excel web page.
I tried that and links are still viable. Photos remain intact.
Or you can link directly to the new Excel web page.
That will save you a lot of work if you have lots of pages. The main draw back is that SE's do not read IFrames. Make sure that you have a sitemap that includes the Excel web pages.

I think I'll try the IFrame idea first. That sounds like it should work out. I'll let you know if I have any questions.
Dave - I like your idea too.
I'll let you know what I end up doing.

Originally Posted by CarbonTerry

Save the Excel as a web page. FTP the web page to your public_html folder (or wherever you need it).
Then use an IFrame on a page and link to the saved Excel web page.
I tried that and links are still viable. Photos remain intact.
Or you can link directly to the new Excel web page.
That will save you a lot of work if you have lots of pages. The main draw back is that SE's do not read IFrames. Make sure that you have a sitemap that includes the Excel web pages.

Gary
I did the steps from Terry's suggestion that I highlighted in red and it worked great! The links remained active, but I didn't try the images. It was extremely easy to do!

If you need something a bit more along the lines of that it can be worked on via the web. Google docs has got a lot better these days for spread sheets.

OK. CarbonTerry, I tried what you suggested, but I guess there's something I'm doing wrong, because when I tried previewing the page, it couldn't find the URL. I know that the IFrame requires a URL, but my file was located at /public_html/tcc7.htm, which isn't a URL, so I assumed the URL must be http://www.tapelessvideo.com/public_html/tcc7.htm. But apparently it's not. What am I doing wrong? What would the URL be?

http://www.tapelessvideo.com/tcc7.htm should be the URL but does not link to the Excel saved as a web page.
Is your Excel document named tcc7.xls ??

http://tapelessvideo.com/tcc7.html

Don't forget the "L" at the end of html.

You do not need to include "/public_html/" in the URL.

Hi, Terry.

Sorry about posting at same time. You are in good hands with Terry...Bye videoguy. :)

Excel documents are saved for the web as .htm (no "l")

No problem Karen.

The Excel document is named ??????

Originally Posted by CarbonTerry

http://www.tapelessvideo.com/tcc7.htm should be the URL but does not link to the Excel saved as a web page.
Is your Excel document named tcc7.xls ??

Yes, it is tcc7.xls

Wait. I take that back. The original is xls, but since I saved this as a web page, it's tcc7.htm.

LOL, I knew what you were saying.
Try saving it with a different name and then linking to it.
I am not sure why the Microsoft Window appears after clicking on your link.

Ok, I just tried it again w/o the public_html, and I got it to load, however, none of the pictures loaded.

What is the new URL?
Are you using the BV ftp to upload the file?

The new URL is http://www.tapelessvideo.com/tcc7.htm
No, I'm not using the BV ftp. I have to confess that I didn't know about it. I just used one called Free FTP.

FTP info
http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/sav...e-blueftp.html
Using an outside ftp source could be a problem.
Try naming the Excel page something other than tcc7 and then use the BV FTP to upload.
I am going to bed in 20 minutes......

I'm not able to connect up with the BV FTP. It doesn't have the same server IP option that I use for publishing pages. I don't know if that's why. But I know I put in my correct u.n. and p.w.

My bad. I was looking at my old IP address. I just connected up. Now I'll try the page.

Still no pics. I did find out though that if I save the excel file as a 'single file web page' which ends up being a .mht file, it does save all the pics. So I guess I'll use that. But I would like to find out why my pics aren't being saved when I'm saving it as a .htm file. Mysterious.

What's the new URL ?
Are the pics jpeg/png/gif ??

The pics are jpeg.
URL is http://www.tapelessvideo.com/tcc8.htm

I still get the Microsoft page.
I do not have the option to save as a single file page in my version of Excel.
Sorry, but I have to get some sleep.

Thanks for all your help. I appreciate your time.

One last question...Does the htm file reside in the public_html folder or in another folder inside the public_html folder ??

Here's a test:
http://www.zone5pix.com/z52/table-test.html

Originally Posted by CarbonTerry

One last question...Does the htm file reside in the public_html folder or in another folder inside the public_html folder ??

It's in the public_html folder, not within another folder.

I'm thinking it may have to do with some setting I have in Excel, why I'm not seeing the pics, cuz when I save it as a web page, and then look at it right then, there's no pics even at that stage.

Originally Posted by CarbonTerry

Here's a test:
http://www.zone5pix.com/z52/table-test.html

What is it I'm supposed to see in the test. I saw the IFrame with links in it, and saw pics outside of the IFrame.

The test was a Excel document saved as a web page residing in an IFrame.
The other images were for another purpose.
Would you care to email the Excel document to me?
If so: trw @ zone5pix dot com

I sent the document to you.

I received it however, I am having server problems and cannot proceed until the issues are resolved.
Sorry.

Back on line !!
http://zone5pix.com/z52/table-test.html
Works for me !!
File/Save As Web Page
Not only do you get a web page but also a folder of files "tcc3_files"
This folder must also be ftp'd to your public_html folder.
This folder has all images, etc.

That makes sense, however, I searched all over and even used the search tool, and there is no folder with that name on my computer. Wonder if there's something wrong with my excel program, or some prreference that's not set right, though I've searched everywhere in the program. I guess I could make a folder with the right name and all the images that I need. But I know it's supposed to automatically produce it.

When you save the Excel use the Save As and then select Web Page from the drop down options.

I just tried that with the same results. BTW, I have Excel 2003. What version do you have?

You did not get a folder" tcc3_files ??
Create a folder just for this project and "Save As" to that folder. Just to repeat....use the Save As function when the window pops up select the Web page option.
I have Office XP
I am not fluent with Excel. How can you delete unused rows and columns.

If your talking about the rows and columns that it automatically creates as you scroll down or across, I don't know if those can be deleted. I actually don't know much about excel myself.
I did the Save As, but it didn't help. I'll try your other suggestion.

I created a new folder, and all that it saved was the file. There's no folder with the images.

Hey, I finally got it to work! I realized that by not selecting the 'add interactivity' box when I save it as a web page, I got a folder with all the files, and thus, the pictures. Everytime that I had been saving it, I was selecting that box, because I wanted interactivity. Why it being selected prevents the pictures from showing up seems crazy. I went a whole month without trying anything, being on vacation, etc. I'm so glad I got it to work. Whew! That saga is over. Now I can continue on with my website. Thanks CarbonTerry for all of your help!