XL2HTML : an Excel 5 to HTML table converter

About XL2HTML:
This is a utility which converts a range of cells from a Microsoft Excel 5.0 spreadsheet into an HTML table. This can be a very useful way of generating HTML tables quickly, without having to deal with HTML tags. The program can handle empty table cells and merged cells, and will preserve some elements of text formatting within the table (e.g. bold and italics). XL2HTML is written as a Visual Basic Macro, and is supplied as freeware by Jordan Evans (see http://www710.gsfc.nasa.gov/704/dgd/xl2html.html). Although it was written for Excel 5.0 for Windows 3.1, the author states that it also works with the Macintosh version of Excel 5.0, and with Excel 7.0 for Windows 95.

To install XL2HTML:

  1. Download and save the file xl2html.xls (69 kb) onto an appropriate location on your hard disk.
    (Note: you may have already configured your WWW browser to start Excel automatically when a link with the extension .xls is selected. If this is the case, Excel will automatically open the file xl2html.xls, and you should then use the "File - Save As..." command in Excel to save the file with the name xl2html.xls onto your local hard disk).
  2. Start Excel, and check that the "standard" toolbar is displayed (by selecting the "View - toolbars" menu commands).
  3. In Excel, open the file xl2html.xls
  4. Under the "TOOLS" menu, select "Macro..."
  5. Select the macro named "Install"
  6. Press the "RUN" button
The installation macro will set up a new button on the main toolbar that looks like a yellow "smiley face".
You can then close the xl2html.xls file in Excel, but you must not delete, rename or move this file.
If there are problems with installation, check the list of frequently asked questions at: http://www710.gsfc.nasa.gov/704/dgd/xlfaq.html.
(Note that it is necessary to be using a complete installation of Excel, including the Visual Basic modules).

See a picture of XL2HTML in use (22Kb)

How to use XL2HTML:

  1. Start Excel, and then open the spreadsheet you wish to convert
  2. Select the region (or range of cells) you wish to convert to HTML table format
  3. With the region selected, press the "smiley face" button
  4. You will be prompted for a filename for the resultant HTML file. Note that it is necessary to include the .htm extension when you type in this filename.
  5. There will then be several more optional dialogue box questions
  6. Once the questions have been completed...an HTML file will be resident in the same directory as the original file (Note - if you cannot find this file, try looking in the same directory as your Excel program files).
Note that once the yellow "smiley face" is installed on the toolbar, you DO NOT need to open the xl2html.xls file every time you wish to do a file conversion. When you press the toolbar button, the xl2html.xls macro will automatically be loaded.

For further information on HTML tables, see the NCSA Tables Tutorial.

[icon] Web Tools  [icon] Go home  [icon] Search  [icon] Contact webmasters

Last Modified: Wednesday, 19-Mar-1997 18:53:42 GMT