Embedding values within a cell containing HTML

[G.P.Runter]

I wonder if anyone can help me with a problem, which I suspect might
be resolvable with Excel. I need to say now that my use of Excel has
so far been pretty basic, and so far that's all it's needed to be.

Here's a summary of what I need:-

I need to take data from 4 cells of one row of a spreadsheet, and
place this data in another 5th cell in the row, wrapping the data in
around 3 pages of HTML. The HTML will be the same in every case, but
the value will change. The position of the values in the HTML will not
change. Basically it's like a mailmerge, only all happening within one
cell of Excel.

Here's the background:-

I use ebay and have been selling off my vinyl collection over the last
year or so. All my records are stored in an Excel spreadsheet, and I
use it as a database. There's only a few "fields" ref number, artist,
title, label, condition, etc. and Excel does what I need. Ebay provide
a free program called Turbo Lister for preparing auctions off line. TL
has an import facility where you can import CSV. I have exported some
of my own Ebay auctions back from TL to CSV, I reckon I can replicate
the required data to enable my to bulk upload my titles without
laboriously creating an auction for each item individually and
manually. But when I downloaded the data one cell contained all the
"description" HTML relating my terms and conditions, standard speil
which does not change from auction to auction, although this cell also
contains the ref number, artist, title, label, condition, etc. This is
the only cell that contains code, all the other cells are "hard" data.
So I need to take the above data from elsewhere in the row and drop it
into this cell. I hope I can do this within Excel.

If anyone could help or point me in the right direction, I'd be really
grateful.

Best wishes,

GPR

 

[David McRitchie]

If eBay's TL program accepts a .CSV file, I don't see how you
are going to force lines to wrap where you want them. HTML browsers
will wrap cells by default left to their own devices (without interference from
Office programs).

A simple assignment using concatenation as in something like the following:
H5: =B5 & " " & C5 & " " & D5 & " " & E5
H5: =B5 & "<BR>" & C5 & "<BR>" & D5 & "<BR>" & E5
might accomplish your task, then simply save to save
your Excel file, then Save As .CSV to create your .csv file.

Otherwise, you would need to use VBA, A couple of macro that might
be of interest are: Chip Pearson's page, converting to VBA
where you could combine some fields into one.]
Exporting to Text Files
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/imptext.htm#Export

I have a page on converting a group of cells to an HTML table
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xl2html.htm
but I think on Ebay you would create separate files for each item
so I don't think this is what you want, and it does require you to
work with the generated HTML table in HTML text.

I think for more information you would have to show what you have in
the cells and what you want to produce -- if you want to get a usable answer
that specifically works for you. Though I'm sure there are some who are
familiar with the program you mention and might be able to answer
more directly, but that might leave the rest of us out of the loop in
understanding the question or the answer. Try to make your question
resemble a spreadsheet at that is what we are working with here.

Another place might be on eBay user group I looked up TL (Turbo Lister), and found
Release notes for eBay Turbo Lister
http://forums.ebay.com/db1/thread.jsp?forum=34&thread=13976&ssPageName=CMDV:ICIN
and one of the items on the right which was a FAQ
http://pages.ebay.com/turbo_lister/turbolisterfaq.html?ssPageName=CMDV:ICOUT