Get up-to-the minute data with Excel’s automatic Web queries

An Excel Web query allows you to bring data from a Web site into an Excel worksheet. It will find any tables on the Web page and let you select the ones containing data you want to put into your worksheet, allowing for dynamic updates from the Web page. Web queries are not just useful for pulling information from standard HTML pages. They can also be used quite nicely in situations where a standard ODBC connection would be difficult or impossible to create or maintain, such as a worksheet that’s used by salespeople around the country.I am going to explain how to use the web query through a basic example to get a feel for how Web queries operate. Before delving into minute details, here is a basic procedure to import data through web query.

Getting started:
To demonstrate the process, we’re going to start with a simple Web query using cricinfo score card. To create the Web query:
1.Select the first cell in which you want results to appear.
2.Choose Data Import External Data New Web Query to open the dialog box shown (see attachment , Fig A)
3. Enter the URL to query in the Address area and click the Go button ( see attachment, Fig B)
4. Navigate to the desired page. Select the table you want to use for the query ( see attachment, fig C)
5. Click the Import button. In the next dialog, enter cell number or worksheet where you want to import data
That’s it. The data is now in your worksheet ( see attachment , Fig D)
6. Once the table is loaded, you can right click anywhere on it and say Refresh Data! and it would fetch the new data from web automatically