Publishing to the Web: A Working Exercise

To Publish your Excel file to the Internet, simply save your Excel file using the FILE - SAVE AS A WEB PAGE menu option. Then just copy or import your file to your web site. (For you novices - of course you will need a web site, and you will also need the log in name and password to access your web site).

Presented below is an example. Start with any Excel file. For my purposes, I have created a simple Excel file that contains some hyperlinks and e-mail addresses that I use frequently. Here it is:

Row 16 contains a complete listing of all the e-mail addresses for my tennis team. When I click on this link, I can e-mail my entire tennis team with just one click and one e-mail. Next I highlight the area that I want to publish as shown below:

Next I choose the FILE – SAVE AS A WEB PAGE option from the menu bar.

The resulting dialog box is displayed:

After checking the Selection button, I then have the option to either create the file and later import it to my web site, or if I am ready to publish the file now, I can click on the Publish button. If you choose to publish, the following screen is shown:

Next I would browse to my web site address, and input my log in name and password when prompted. Here are the steps that you should follow:

·         Select Save As Web Page from the File menu.

·         Select Publish from the Save As menu.

·         Click on the Browse button and identify the web site.  It is important that you do not click on the Add interactivity with: check box.  Adding interactivity will cause the AutoShape and the e-mail link not to work.

·         Click on OK and you are done.

Excel Worksheet Published as a Web Page

You can save a Microsoft Excel workbook or part of the workbook, such as a single item on the worksheet, as a Web page and make it available on an HTTP. Just like normal web pages, readers will be able to access this web page to retrieve text, graphics, sound, and other digital information from a Web server. You can publish interactive or non-interactive versions of your entire workbook as a Web page.

You can publish a spreadsheet or portions of a spreadsheet on a Web page either with or without interactive functionality. When you publish without interactivity, users can view the data and formatting on the Web page, but not manipulate data or formatting. If you want users to be able to manipulate data on your Web page, you can create a Web page from a Microsoft Excel worksheet or items from the worksheet by saving the data with spreadsheet functionality. When you publish interactively with spreadsheet functionality, users can do the following:

           ·     Enter data
·         Format data
·         Calculate data
·         Analyze data
·         Sort and filter

In interactive Web pages the following functionality works:

           ·         Worksheets
·         PivotTable reports
·         External data ranges- data that is brought into a worksheet that originates outside of Excel.
·         Ranges of cells
·         Filtered lists
·         Print areas
·         Charts

You can publish a chart with or without interactivity. When you publish without interactivity, an image of the chart in a picture format (.jpg) is saved and displayed on the Web page. If you want to put an interactive chart or PivotChart report on a Web page, you can save the chart with interactive chart functionality. Thereafter, when you change the chart's corresponding data on the Web page, the chart is updated automatically.

To create a chart with interactive functionality, you must first have a chart or a PivotChart report in Excel. When you publish that chart interactively, Excel automatically includes the source data for the chart on the Web page. If you want to change the size of the chart on the Web page, you can open the Web page in either Microsoft FrontPage or Data Access Page Design view in Microsoft Access and make the changes there.

You can publish a PivotTable Report with or without interactivity. When you publish without interactivity, users can view the report but cannot make changes to the table such as dragging fields or changing the types of summaries used, as can be done in Excel. If you want your Web users to be able to interact with a PivotTable report or if you want to publish an external data range  that you can refresh, you can put an interactive PivotTable list on a Web page. (The Web version of an interactive PivotTable report is called a PivotTable list.) When you publish interactively with PivotTable functionality, users can filter the data in the resulting PivotTable list, analyze the data by getting different views of it, and refresh external data in the browser.

If you want to give this a try yourself, you can download my example Excel 2002 file here:
http://www.exceladvisor.net/sub/creative/web-webpage.xls

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