If you copy or link data between Windows and Mac Excel workbooks, you need to change the serial number format to avoid incorrect dates. Open the 'Advanced' tab in the Options and check or uncheck the 'Use 1904 Data System' box. Dec 15, 2018 Excel for Mac: New database query has no option to import from web hi, i want to import an API into my excel worksheet. I do Data--> New Database Query. But the drop down menu has only the option to import from SQL server odbc, or a database. There are no options to import from 'other' or the web etc.
Often, we use Excel to summarize detail that comes from some other program or accounting system. There are essentially three ways that I am aware of to get data from another program into a destination Excel worksheet, I’ll nickname them:. Copy/Paste. Pull. Push Copy/Paste The Copy/Paste method is probably the most common. It is when you basically view or export the data to a new Excel, csv or text file, and then copy and paste the data into the destination Excel worksheet.
It is easy to use and works well. However, other methods may be more efficient for recurring use workbooks. Pull You can pull the data directly from the external data source using the External Data feature of Excel. This post focuses on this feature, and the details are found below. Push You can also push the data from the system into a specific worksheet in an existing workbook.
Not all applications support this method, but when they do, it will save a step. Now, let’s spend the rest of our time working through the External Data feature. External Data The External Data feature has been in Excel for a long time, and I first started using it in about 1997. This feature made a big improvement in my workflow and increased my productivity.
Since then, I’ve been a huge fan of this feature! It is one of those things that is just sitting there waiting to be discovered and put to use. External Data Overview First, let’s start with what the feature does, and then we’ll move on to how to use it.
External data is defined as data that exists outside of the Excel workbook, in some other place. That other place could be almost anywhere, and Excel supports pulling external data from a wide variety of sources. Examples include data stored on web pages, in text files, or in other programs. Programs that store large amounts of data are often built upon a database engine or platform. You, as the user, see the program’s user interface which is made up of menus, icons, dialog boxes, and forms. Behind the scenes however, applications often store their data in a database.
It is this underlying database that Excel can often tap into with the External Data feature. This feature doesn’t pull a single value into a single cell.
It retrieves a block of data, or a table, that will ultimately occupy a range of cells. The External Data feature asks you to identify the location of the data you want. Once you do, Excel retrieves the data and places it into the selected worksheet. The best part of this feature lies in the fact that the External Data range is not static.it can be refreshed. When you click the refresh button, Excel heads out to the data source and pulls back the updated data. This improves the efficiency of recurring use workbooks because you don’t need to do the whole export, import, reformat routine that is needed with the standard copy/paste method. You simply click the refresh button, and bam, the updated data just appears in your worksheet.
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How to Pull External Data Excel supports pulling data from a wide variety of data sources. Examples include web pages, text files such as csv files, SQL, Access, ODBC compliant sources, and more. The basic process is that you first identify the type of data source and then the location. Depending on the type of source, you’ll have appropriate options. For example, if you are pulling data from an Access database, you’ll identify the table or query, and then which columns and rows you want.
For this post, I wanted to use a data source that you’ll have access to in case you want to work along. So, we’ll pull some external data from a web page. We tell Excel that we want to retrieve data from an external source by first identifying the type of source. This is done by selecting the appropriate ribbon icon from the Data tab as shown below. For this simple example, we want to get data from a web page.
Our objective is to pull historical closing stock prices for Apple. So we click the From Web icon from the Data ribbon. This will reveal the next step in the process, which is to identify the web page. We’ll head over to the Yahoo Finance page, so we enter the URL into the address field, as shown below. Next, we enter the stock symbol AAPL for Apple into the web page, and click the Get Quotes button.
We scroll down the page a bit, until we see the “Historical Prices” link on the left. We click it, and we can see the daily closing prices.
We click the yellow arrow for the Prices table, and see that Excel identifies the range with a border and changes the yellow arrow to a green check, as shown below. Next, we click the Import button and then tell Excel where we want the data to be placed, and bam, we have it in our Excel worksheet, as shown below. The best part is that if we want to refresh the data, we don’t need to go through all of the setup steps again, we just need to click the refresh button on the Data ribbon tab, or, right-click the external data range and select Refresh. Excel will go back to the data source, retrieve the updated data and drop it, automagically, into the worksheet. Recap For recurring processes, the External Data feature is probably more efficient than the standard copy/paste approach since you simply click the Refresh button to retrieve updated data. There are many external data sources that are compatible with this feature. This post only provided a simple warm-up.
There is a lot more to explore as this feature supports a wide range of data types, sources, and options. You can even set up a parameter query, where the criteria is placed in an Excel worksheet. The criteria values stored in Excel are relayed to the external data source during the retrieval, and this makes it easy to filter the data before it hits the worksheet. April 24, 2016 at 5:23 pm. Hi Jeff, i have Excel for Mac and i am trying to pull email addresses off a real estate site into my excel for a mass mailing. I can’t seem to find the “from web” tab on my data pulldown, so essentially i am stuck at step one. My data pull down has “from text” and “from database” and “from HTML” and “from Filemaker” I clicked on the “from HTML” but it is asking me for a file stored in my computer.
Thanks so much for the insight. Excel is a remarkably powerful tool. Kurt LeBlanc.
Excel 2016 for Mac brings lots of welcome improvements to the workhorse spreadsheet but also leaves out useful tools. Pros Moving to the cloud: Like the other apps in the latest Mac Office suite, Excel 2016 lets you store, sync, and edit files online, via Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service. You can also save Excel files to your Dropbox account. Collaborate: Excel 2016, through OneDrive, lets you share documents with colleagues and collaborate in real time. You can chat online as well, either through a document chat window or through Skype.
Modern design: The redesigned ribbon for the Mac version of Excel borrows the look and feel of its Windows counterpart, presenting tools and formatting options in much the same way as Excel for Windows does. Excel also recommends appropriate charts based on spreadsheet data. Moving across platforms: Excel 2016 supports many of the Windows keyboard shortcuts and most of the Excel 2013 for Windows functions, which should make it easier to use the tool across platforms.
The update also includes an Analysis ToolPak add-in, PivotTable slicers for analyzing data, and an improved formula builder. Cons Macro limits: Prior to Office 2016, you could build macros in Excel for Mac.
The 2016 edition offers what Microsoft calls a 'simplified' Visual Basic Editor (VBE), which allows you to debug existing macros. But if you want to build new macros, you need to do that on the Windows side or use an earlier Mac version.
For those who built macros in preceding Mac editions, this is a big loss. Bottom Line Excel 2016 is probably worth the upgrade just based on its ability to take advantage of OneDrive. The new analysis tools and formula builder help keep Microsoft's spreadsheet an essential tool. Hobbling its macros tool, however, diminishes a bit of the attraction for serious users. More Resources. With the new features in Excel, you'll be telling your data's story in no time. Charts, graphs, keyboard shortcuts and data entry enhancements (like formula builder and autocomplete) immediately make you more productive.
And support for Excel 2013 (for Windows) functions ensures that you can easily share files across platforms. The new Analysis ToolPak offers a wide range of statistical functions, including moving averages and exponential smoothing, and PivotTable Slicers help you cut through large volumes of data to find patterns that answer questions.