Tip # 44 Open Web pages right in Excel

If your users need to analyze data found on a Web site, they might be in for a bunch of tedious retyping. Under the right circumstances, however, Excel 97 can save them a lot of time by letting them open an HTML page in Excel directly from the Web.
The procedure is just a slight modification of the standard file-opening procedure:
1. Choose Open from the File menu.
2. In the File Name text box, type the URL of the Web file to open. Note: Be sure to include the prefix http://.
3. From the Files Of Type drop-down list, select HTML Documents (*.html, *.htm).
4. Click Open.
Excel opens HTML pages based on the HTML table structure of the page, so some Web design treatments may lead to some weird results in Excel. For pages that cleanly present data in a table format, however, this approach can be a real time-saver.

Tip # 43 Easy data-posting to the Web

If your organization is using an intranet to share public data—and whose organization isn't these days—your users will want an easy way to post this information. Excel 97 offers an easy, wizard-driven system to walk even the most apprehensive users through this process:
1. Select the cell range that contains the data to be published.
2. Select Save As HTML from the File menu.
3. Answer the questions posed by the Internet Assistant Wizard.
The wizard walks users through four steps that define how information will be converted for Web display. Various options include:
• Inserting the resulting HTML tables into an existing HTML page or creating an entirely new page.
• Specifying formatting options, such as rules between data.
• Saving the new HTML page as a freestanding file or inserting it directly into a FrontPage Web.