Semalt Review – How To Scrape Data Into Excel
The concept of Big Data is fast becoming a reality as organizations have now developed an insatiable appetite for regular data. It should not come as a surprise since the biggest weapon of competition in the corporate world now is the amount of data at your disposal.
While every organization requires data, they need it in a different format. To cash in on the high demand for web data extraction, several software companies have been developing different data extraction tools with one trying to surpass the other.
There are numerous methods to download data into an Excel file. The methods depend on the version of Excel you are using. This article outlines the steps involved in downloading data into Excel 2000 and Excel 2003 separately, starting with the former.
How To Download Data Into Excel 2000
To download data into Excel 2000, you should start by opening a new Excel worksheet. Go to Data Menu and select either "Get External Data" or "Import External Data". After that, you should select "New Web Query".
A dialog box will pop up, asking for the URL of the web page in which you intend to scrape the data. It will also ask for the required table of data and the format of the required data. Fill the box accordingly and also choose how often you want the data updated.
After filling the dialog box, you can select "Import External Data" again from the Data Menu. Finally, you should also choose Data Range Properties and you are done. This method is suitable for obtaining statistical data as the data will be imported into the correct rows and columns in Excel 2000. If you decide to do a copy and paste merely, you will find out that an entire row will appear in just one single cell. So, it will be absolutely unusable.
How To Download Data Into Excel 2003
To download data into Excel 2003, you need to open a new Excel worksheet and select the "Data" option from the toolbar. Thereafter, you can select "Import External Data" and then select "New Web Query".
There is a text field provided for the URL of your target web page. The field is at the top of the window, next to "Address". Just enter the required URL and click the "Go" button. After that, you can click the yellow arrow(s) located next to the information that you wish to download into Excel.
Once you realize that your required data has been downloaded, you can click the "Import" button and also click on the location on the worksheet where you want the data pasted. Then, click the "OK" button, and you are good to go. That's it.
In conclusion, these methods may be easy if you intend to extract data from just a few web pages. Can you imagine applying these steps when you intend to scrape data from over one hundred web pages? It is definitely not possible. This is why you should opt for either any of the specialized web scraping tools available or opt for the service of a web scraping company.
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