How to Copy Data From a Web Database
The Web is an incredible goldmine of data on just about any topic imaginable, including historical stock prices at financial websites, casts of films at movie websites, makes and models of cars at vehicle websites, and much more. Copying data from the Web to a document can be a tricky undertaking because simple cut-and-paste operations sometimes result in garbled or poorly formatted information. Fortunately, you can cleanly import data tables directly from the Internet with a few mouse clicks.
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Open the website page that contains the database table you want to copy.
-
2
Open your Excel spreadsheet program and click on the "Data" link near the top of the screen to open a pull-down menu of options. Click "Import External Data" and then click "New Web Query."
You can also use the keyboard: press Alt-D, Alt-D, Alt-W. Either approach will open the "New Web Query" options box.
-
-
3
Check the URL listed in the "New Web Query" options box. It should be the URL of the page you want to copy from. If it is not, change the URL to the correct page.
-
4
Click the table you want to import into Excel. The "New Web Query" box displays the web page, and each table on the page has a small yellow box with a black arrow next to it. Click the box to select the table and then click "Import" to import the data from that table directly into your spreadsheet.
-
5
Save your file with the Ctrl-S keyboard combination or by using the "Save" command on the "File" pull-down menu. You can then retrieve the data anytime you want to review or work with it.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
On some Web pages, the Excel data import function is automatically enabled. You can check with a right-click on the table to open a list of menu options. If the menu includes "Export to Microsoft Excel" then you can import the data directly with a single click on that link.
References
- Photo Credit number background image by kuhar from Fotolia.com
