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I hope I have used the right tags on this question - I'm helping a client research this question and our biggest challenge is my lack of knowledge of Excel and the client's lack of knowledge of front-end web languages - we are getting stuck somewhere in the middle:

Basically, we are trying to find a way to automatically update the content on a web page with the value from one specific cell in an Excel Online spreadsheet. The cell contains a chunk of HTML that we want to include on our page.

I see how we can "embed" a single cell with the tools Excel Online provides, but we are really interested in getting the contents only of that cell, without the Excel spreadsheet embed container or any other formatting.

Would be happy to use Javascript or PHP or even an iframe to accomplish this, but have not found any examples or similar questions in our research.

Is this even possible? And how would we go about it if so?

Thanks very much!

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EAllen
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  • I don't know the answer but I added a couple more tags. Some of the regulars in the `excel-vba` tag have vast knowledge regarding all things related to programming with Excel – John Coleman Aug 16 '15 at 18:46
  • It is possible. Unfortunately I'm not the best person to answer this, but can share something that could help. Standard and Poors has an Excel plugin that automatically updates information from their website -- CapitalIQ http://www.spcapitaliq.com/our-capabilities/our-capabilities.html?product=excel-plug-in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab8Df5ropKI So to answer at least a part of your question, it is possible and does exist. Good luck! – SJSU2013 Aug 16 '15 at 20:33
  • So how does the HTML get into that cell? Does someone type it in or does something put it in there? – Nick.Mc Aug 16 '15 at 22:45
  • This link contains code to get data out of an Excel spreadsheet: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ff921204(v=office.14).aspx. This link is a walkthrough on creating a web service: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8wbhsy70(v=vs.90).aspx put these together and you should be able to build the first part: a web service that you can call (by typing a URL into a browser for instance) that will return the contents aof an Excel cell. Then you need to create the application that 'consumes' it. You don't have any sample code so I can't guess your architecture or skill level. – Nick.Mc Aug 16 '15 at 23:07
  • Hi Nick.McDermaid - the HTML is dynamically created by a script that the client has written, and uses data from other parts of the excel workbook. To date, that HTML has been copied and pasted into the WordPress CMS they are using, but as there are about 45 of these pages on the site, they are hoping to find a way to automate this part of the process so when the spreadsheet is updated, the site can be updated automatically. – EAllen Aug 17 '15 at 00:39

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