Hello,
I am aware that excel worksheets can be exported as WEBPAGES – but lets be frank – they do NOT look sexy. I have tried a million ways to export my model dashboards into a more or less coherent html format – yes it can be static – I just want it to look right and render right in all browsers – but failed mightily. All exported dashboards render differently in most brokers – except Internet Explorer.
So here comes the question – is there a way to connect an excel worksheet to a HTML report generator of some kind which can output a perfectly rendered and stable html version of the dashboard? (it can be static – NO PROBLEM)
I have tried connecting Excel to InDesign and then exporting as HTML – that did not work. Tried all the commercial Excel to HTML converters and these do not work as well….
The only solution is to use some expensive Business Intelligence software – BUT THESE RAELY EXPORT REPORTS AS STANDALONE HTML DASHBOARDS – they need to be connected to in-house databases….
Please help me if you have the solution to this… I find myself thinking how rich someone would become if only someone created such software.
Dave
Hi @semantina, welcome to the forum!
When I read “dashboard” my mind goes to the type of admin panel in Wordpress or the like. But I dare not imagine how a dashbpoard would look like in Ms Excel.
Please explain how the Excel dashboard you try to export as html is done and what content the worksheet contains.
I guess you want the html page look like the worksheet does in Excel, but a web page works differently. Please tell if you plan to use some software to convert/export to html or if you rather create the html your self, I mean will this task be done on a regular basis so it need to be automatable?
Are you saying the Excel worksheet is used as a flat file database and you want a html page that can import data from it?
A screenshot could be helpful to see what the Excel “dashboard” is about.
I would have thought there is something out there that would do it. If not I don’t think it would be that difficult to make if you have some basic programming knowledge.
There is a tool I have used in the past that reads Excel in PHP, which means you can then render the data in any way you choose, HTML or otherwise.
It does not have to be a boring html table, for example I used it to take data from an Excel sheet and write a KML file (which is basically XML) which when displayed with a Google Maps API shows locations on a map with corresponding icons. That’s probably not what you want, but an example to show that how you display the data is down to your imagination. Doing that required a bit of php know-how, but nothing too advanced.
Thank you for your very kind reply… This excel model is the FRONT PANEL (or a dahsboard) of a number of advanced excel models operating behind - I just need to export it daily or hourly - no need to update it every second - so it can be static - and pure and clean and stable HTML - can it be done?
I am curently using the excels function to export ad the WEBPAGE…the resultant html file looks OK but it renders differently in different browsers…maybe because the excel file has a few pictures…But I do need them.
here is the link to my Dropbox - inside archive you will see the html file and the excel workbook from which it is generated - it is absolutely virus free!)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f2uyo7rvjebcmi2/fixed%20layout2.rar?dl=0
Can you give me a link to this file - sounds interesting - but I need to tell you that I am low on HTML programming skills… does it require programming?
And yes - the HTML dashboard would need to be AUTOMATICALLY generated daily or hourly…it should include hyperlinks to the other reports - e.g. USA report would point to USA panel…etc.
Your Dropbox link seems to be incomplete. I’m only getting a 404 error.
yes just corrected the link.
This is the PHP Excel Reader tool.
Yes, it will require some PHP programming work to use this.
You will also need some HTML and CSS skills to display the data as you want across all browses.
If you use the above tool, it could be done via a cron job, every hour or whenever and update the data.
Or the pages could be created dynamically from the Excel data on demand whenever a client requests the page, so they get the latest version. Again it would require a little programming knowledge to do that.
I’ve downloaded your files to check them. (You’ll probably find very few members are willing to download and open a zipped file.) There is a .zip file within the .rar, and I am unable to open that; my system says “An error occurred while loading the archive”.
The other files, for those who are interested:
chartexport.xls (48 KB)
(Converted from .xlsx to allow upload)
Chrome export:
Firefox export:
IE export:
yes thank you for uploading them here - the zip file contains the generated webpage…
here is the link to the generated webpage
https://www.dropbox.com/s/upsn9zzo6x8eeqx/chart%20export%20webpage.rar?dl=0
I wonder if there is a way to make it look the same in all browsers?
Not easily, I’d guess. The HTML validator found 718 errors in that single page. At a quick glance, it seems to be using quite a lot of MS proprietory stuff, so it’s unsurprising that only IE can interpret it as MS intended.
Thank you Sam - but I guess it is a bit above my abilities right now - I need an excel exporter which will do all correctly itself or I need to connect excel to a HTML report generator which can output stable and static HTML file…
OR (3RD ONE) - I need to edit the generated HTML file - so that it shows the same in all browsers…do you think there is HOPE in this?
If all the html should do is to display the data, not use it in any other way than read it, then you could actually export the spreadsheet as an image. Then justn use the simpliest html to show the image exactly the same in all devices.
This I think would be the least trouble to do. As an example, with a shrinked image:charexport.html (192 Bytes)
Just a thought.
thank you very much for your reply - well yes I am using exactly this way to export numerous other types of analysis as an IMAGE because ti woudl take hundred of years to code them into a dynamic HTML files…BUT I NEED THIS MASTER DASHBOARD to show LINKS to the other PICTURE-TYPE ANALYSIS…so it must be a HTML based file…
I UPLOADED A SMALL SNAPSHOT OF THE OTHER COMPLEX MODELS to give you a general idea
I see.
So if the image can have “embedded” links to click, it would work?
An html image can have link areas anywhere you wish, it would be some coding to set the spots that are clickable as links are. But much less work than sort the mess Ms calls a web page.
Check if that is an option (4th): https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/map
If the dashboard has the same layout every time you could just change the image and the link urls.
yes thank you - I am using the methods that you describe to add the tooltips to the images BUT there is still no KNOWN WAY (in this universe) TO ADD hyperlinks to specific areas of an image…
MAYBE SOMEONE KNOWS SOME SOFTWARE WHICH CAN CONNECT TO EXCEL TABLES AND OUTPUT CLEAN HTML REPORTS??? SOS
I think I have found a way - a cumbersome but still working way to generate stable reports from excel which look the same in all browsers…I print excel dashboard to pdf and then convert it to HTML with a commercial PDF converter…please take a look at the converted file - looks amazing - can you please test if it shows stable on your side?
https://www.dropbox.com/s/d85l3d5vz9rl03k/new%20chart%20export.rar?dl=0
Yes it looks very good in Chromium and Firefox, IE n/a.
I tested a few changes if you don’t mind.
new-chart-export.zip (409.1 KB)
Check the the uploaded zip and see if it works as you intended. I cropped the image and changed the centering method. The original did hide the left part out of reach in a narrow viewport.
Nice, I took a screenshot to get an image for the html.