We’re getting ready to go on a family vacation to Alaska, and one of the big questions in the months leading up to the trip has been what the weather will be. Last week my wife and I were reviewing our trip todos and I stumbled on a great feature in Google Spreadsheets that I’d never used before: ImportHTML.
Before each trip, my wife and I work from a shared spreadsheet. We list out the packing details, transportation, itinerary, etc., and then divvy up the tasks. (I should point out that my wife almost always shoulders the vast majority of these tasks.) As of a week ago, the long-range forecast at Accuweather.com was showing rain for the entire time we’d be in Alaska. Not awesome, but at least we’d be prepared.
But as I looked at the spreadsheet with our itinerary, I was annoyed that I had what we’d be doing listed out, but not the weather (which could dramatically affect what we’d pack, and what we’d need for various days). That’s when I found ImportHTML and fell in love.
The premise behind the function is simple: in a cell, type =ImportHTML(“[URL]”,”[query]”,”[index]”), where “query” is the element within the HTML that you want to import, and “index” is which element within the page you want to import. Here’s how it works:
I found this page at Accuweather.com that lists out the month’s extended forecast for Anchorage, Alaska. Conveniently, it’s laid out as an HTML
2 responses to “ImportHTML and Google Spreadsheets”
Nice job of using ImportHTML! Inspired me to write one myself on using ImportHTML() to make a nice map visualization of facebook usage data.Let me know what you think: http://spreadsheetpro.net/using-importhtml-to-scrape-facebook-usage-numbers/
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