Paul,
Something that I have been playing with is the WebQuery. This feature first
appeared in Excel/97. Basically it pulls an HTML page into a worksheet,
usually tables. However, there are some extensions you can put into the
HTML to format your cells or to even create PivotTables on the fly. The
cool part of WebQueries is that it also handles the data transfer. There is
no need to download the file to the PC. Just format the HTML file and let
Apache serve it to your users (and remember you can even put security on
these files through Apache). Finally, WebQueries are smart enough to save
your current formatting and let you refresh your data in an existing
spreadsheet. Sorry, I don't have any examples that are ready for prime time
but...
A quick into to WebQueries can be found at (ends in 0298.htm)
http://www.microsoft.com/mind/defaulttop.asp?page=/mind/0298/corner0298.htm&
nav=/mind/0298/inthisissuecolumns0298.htm
For the meat and potatoes on the WebQuery, and to see how one could format
cells, get the Excel 97 Web Connectivity Kit (ends with .aspx)
http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/9798/webcnkit.aspx
Of course all of this works with the later versions of Excel. Excel/XP adds
the same ability through a published XML format.
HTH
Mark Wonsil
4M Enterprises, Inc.
-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Paul H Christidis
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2001 4:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [HP3000-L] Excel and leading zeroes
Thanks to all that replied to my question.
All the suggestions required user intervention, something that we cannot
always be assured that it would be
performed correctly.
What I was hoping for, was some way of 'tagging' the field and forcing
Excel to treat is as text. Single and
double quotes do not work.
A consultant that I know, who is very familiar with Excel, indicated that
on a previous job they had to prefix
every payroll number with a "1" just to 'get around' this "we know better"
feature of Excel, and that repeated
attempts to get an answer from microsoft produced no results.
* To join/leave the list, search archives, change list settings, *
* etc., please visit http://raven.utc.edu/archives/hp3000-l.html *
|
