html import-web query 101?

[cruiserad]

Mac ibook g4, osx.3.9, 0ffice 2004, multiple browsers.
have need to import an html table into excel to finish a thesis
project. the data includes free text fields with imbeded commas, which
are screwing up the import. copy/paste, the the on-line helps have
been of no use. how do i create/modify a web query to import data
from an html page already saved to my hard drive?

 

[Tom Stiller]

Mac ibook g4, osx.3.9, 0ffice 2004, multiple browsers.
have need to import an html table into excel to finish a thesis
project. the data includes free text fields with imbeded commas, which
are screwing up the import. copy/paste, the the on-line helps have
been of no use. how do i create/modify a web query to import data
from an html page already saved to my hard drive?

What works for me:

If you don't have the freeware TextWrangler application, download it
from Versiontracker.

Display the HTML page and select the desired table.

Select "Services" from the browser's application name menu and choose
"TextWrangler->New Window with Selection".

TW will open a new window containing the selected table data with tab
characters between the columns. Multi-line cell contents are
troublesome, but they can usually be cleaned up.

Edit the window's contents to suite and then copy and paste into Excel.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Mac ibook g4, osx.3.9, 0ffice 2004, multiple browsers.
have need to import an html table into excel to finish a thesis
project. the data includes free text fields with imbeded commas, which
are screwing up the import. copy/paste, the the on-line helps have
been of no use. how do i create/modify a web query to import data
from an html page already saved to my hard drive?

What do you mean by 'screwing up" the import. Have you tried the text to
columns function after the data was in Excel?