Symptoms
Web Query Software
Click the new menu item top open the browser window. In the Address field, paste the web query URL from Search Ads 360 and click Go. The first time you enter a web query URL, you may get a Security Alert notice that You are about to view pages over a secure connection. Select the check box and click OK. Choose Data → Import External Data → New Web Query to open the New Web Query dialog box. When the New Web Query dialog box opens, Excel connects you to the Internet and displays your Web browser's home page. Enter the URL address of the Web site whose data you want to extract. Click the Go button to visit the page. Based on additional discussion with co-workers and management regarding the standards for web browsers (use of a modern web browser, Microsoft Edge or Chrome, but final decision was not available), I discovered two possible solutions. Chrome solution: This solution I was able to test on a co-workers computer. Now, go to Excel and open a workbook with a blank worksheet. Go to Data From Web. After you click on From Web, you would be returned to the New Web Query window as illustrated in screenshot given below. Enter the web page URL (which we copied from timeanddate.com) in the Address bar and hit the Go button.
In Microsoft Excel, when you create a Web query from a site that uses the Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (https://), you may receive an error message that resembles the following error message:
Unable to open
address. Cannot download the information you requested.
Note In this message, address is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the secure Web page that you are trying to connect to.
Cause
This issue occurs when Excel cannot initiate a connection because of the settings on the secure Web server.
More Information
To test whether Excel is able to connect to a particular Web page, follow these steps:
In Microsoft Office Excel 2003 or in Microsoft Excel 2002, click Open on the File menu.
In Microsoft Office Excel 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click
Open.In the File name box, type the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the secure Web page that you want to open, and then click Open.
Web Browser Web Browsers Web Queries In Excel
If you cannot open the Web page, Excel cannot connect to the secure Web page, and you cannot create a Web query.
Excel Web Query - What in the world is that? If you are like the other 99.9% of MS Excel users, you probably have never heard of microsoft excel web queries (note: statistic made up).
Excel web queries are powerful! Web queries are basically like having a web browser built into Excel that attempts to format the content, putting individual pieces of data into separate cells. You can then use Excel formulas (like =A1/B2) to work directly with the data you've downloaded. And you don't have to know anything about perl, cgi, php, javascript, etc.
Getting Started with Sample Excel Web Queries
The example web queries that come with Excel are usually for importing stock quote data into Excel. For more information about using web queries to download Stock Quotes into Excel, take a look at the Excel Stock Quotes Template.
Although importing stock quotes into Excel happened to be the reason I came across Excel web queries, I have since found many other ways to use them.
It is not the web query itself that is the secret that this article is about. Instead, it's the ability to make a DYNAMIC Web Query!
By dynamic, I'm not talking about using 'refresh' to update the data. What I mean is the ability to change the parameters of the web query, such as typing in a new stock symbol into a cell and having the table update automatically.
If you find yourself using the internet to gather data by filling out forms and copying and pasting data over and over, an excel web query might be the solution to your monotonous woes. It's not always going to be better, and it's not always going to work, but it's worth a try, especially since a simple web query could boost your productivity!
Excel Web Query '.iqy' Files
The real key to creating a dynamic excel web query is to create your own '.iqy' file. In it's basic form, the '.iqy' file is simply a TEXT file with three main lines:
You can create the file using a simple text editor! Most text editors will save a new file with the .txt extension, but you can change the extension to .iqy after you create your text file. If it is already a .iqy file and you want to edit it, you may need to right-click on it to select NotePad or WordPad (or some other text editor) to open it.
The third line is the important one! It's simply the URL or web page address. Notice that it contains two parameters. If you don't know what parameters are for, just browse the web for a while and pay attention to what shows up in the address bar of your browser. Go to Google.com for instance, and look up 'excel web query'.
Parameter name / value pairs are listed after the '?' in the URL and are separated by an '&'.
Make the Web Query Dynamic
To make the query dynamic, replace the value of each parameter in the web query file (queryname.iqy) with:
Want to see how this would apply to a Google search? The form that I used above consists of HTML code that looks like this:
Notice that 'q' is the name of the parameter, and the action tells you what the URL should be. The dynamic web query file for a simple google search would look like this:
Let's Create a Web Query
- Open up a text editor and copy the Google example. Save the file as GoogleSearch.iqy
- Open up Excel and enter a search term in Cell B3
- Open the web query file you just saved (GoogleSearch.iqy) by double-clicking on the file, or open Excel and go to Data > Existing Connections > Browse for More.
- When prompted for the search term, enter =B3. If that doesn't work, just enter a search term for now.
Play around with the web query options and properties by right-clicking within the query results and selecting Parameters or Data Range Properties or Edit Query.
When you go to Edit Query, you can choose to select a specific portion or table within the page or the entire page (by clicking on one of the yellow arrow boxes in the preview). Then, you can save your new query as a .iqy file and look at what parameters it uses.
When you have the query looking just the way you want it, save the Excel web query (an icon or button for saving the web query is in the 'Edit Query' window. When you save the new query, your '.iqy' file will include the options you have selected.
Other Example Web Queries
Below are a few examples of .iqy files that you might try. Websites often change, or they may change the way their APIs work, so these examples might not work forever.
Example 1: Get historical daily stock prices from Investopedia. Note that the start and end dates are text, so if you are setting up date parameters in Excel, the cells you link to need to be text rather than date values. This query uses 3 parameters: Symbol, StartDate, EndDate.
See this article for other sources for historical stock quotes.
Example 2: Get data from a published Google Spreadsheet. See my article Excel Stock Quotes in Excel to see how you can publish a Google Spreadsheet and then use a web query to get the data into Excel.
Become a Web Query Wiz
Take a few minutes to think about what mundane or repetitive tasks YOU do on the internet, particularly cases where you go to the same sites over and over to get data. If you find yourself copying and pasting or re-typing information into Excel so that you can perform calculations with the data, you may have found an ideal use for an excel web query.
There are two main things that you need in order to become a Web Query Wiz.
- A working knowledge of Excel formulas. By this, I mean the ability to use text-manipulation and other formulas. A GREAT book for both learning and reference (and the one that I use all the time) is John Walkenbach's 'Excel Formulas'. If you are an avid Excel user, it will probably be the best investment you will make for a long time! The only problem I have with the book is that I need TWO copies - one for work and one for home.
- A working knowledge of HTML. This is the hard part unless you are a web designer or programmer. The articles listed in the side bar will help to some extent, but ultimately this issue was the reason why I didn't write a more detailed tutorial. Something that will be a great help is to learn about how <form> tags work. Here is my favorite reference.
If you found this article interesting, be sure to check out some of my other Excel tips.
- Jon Wittwer, President
Vertex42, LLC
Cite This Article
To reference this article from your website or blog, please use something similar to the following citation:Wittwer, J.W., 'Excel Web Query Secrets Revealed' From Vertex42.com, 2003