Advanced
Apache web server
ASP
ASP.NET
Backend integration
Billing, ordering, refunds
Browsers
Calculation
Run off-line from CD
Charts
Controls: dropdown, checkbox, ...
Database
Date & time calculations and I/O
Dreamweaver
Email
Error during conversion
Excel
Formatting
Frontpage
Functions
General
Generate
Hosting
IIS, Microsoft Information Server
Input cells and input fields
Installation
Integration
Internationalization, localization
J2ME, Java for mobile phones
Java
JavaScript
Licensing
Linux
Apple Macintosh and OSX
VBA and macros
Multi-sheet spreadsheets
Naming of cells and fields
Offline
Ordering of software, payments
Other programs
Performance
PHP
Pictures, images, clip-art
Presale questions
Printing
Recalculation
References to other sheets and workbooks
Requirements
Save
Scalablility
Protect content
Service for handling submit
Share spreadsheet online
Submit
Support
Trial, Free trial
Upload and publishing to website
Validate input
VBA
Microsoft Visual Studio
Web design
Webquery
Webservices
Website integration

Advanced

Can your product be "command line" driven? Is there an API that will allow it to be called from another program?

No. Not right know. If you need this, please contact support.

Do you have a batch mode?

Yes, there is a batch-mode program available that is targeted for customers that needs to convert hundreds of spreadsheets. Contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information.

Why are output fields form parameters?

So that you can retrieve them on the server.

Can I change the label names on the HTML form without corrupting the calculating formula?

You cannot change the id or name directly on the web page. They are used in the calculation part. But there is a solution:

If you name the cells in Excel using Insert-Name-Define, and these names start with a letter, and only contains letters, digits and _, then these names will be used in the form.

Reference card for JavaScript

Look at

http://javascript-reference.info/

from Visibone, which has a lot of nice printed reference cards.

http://www.visibone.com/

Where can I change the e-mail of the Advanced Service to where the forms are send to?

The Advanced Service consists of two parts

1. The email looks like the web page

2. The fields are stored in a database for later retrival.

You get 1. by selecting Advanced Service in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard

You get 2. by using a recevier code for an email address that is known to SpreadsheetServer.

When we set up the Advanced Service account for you, you got one login + password. Create a new user for the second email address whose submits you want to store, request a receiver code for this second email address, enter it into the wizard, convert and publish.

Apache web server

How do I create a web form that uses a FrontPage server extensions enabled web server?

When you create a form to be used by a web server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (for example Microsoft IIS or Apache), follow these steps:

Create the Excel spreadsheet.
Name the input and output cells in Excel (This step is not mandatory, but makes the result easier to understand).
Create the web page using SpreadsheetConverter.
Start FrontPage.
Load the web page created in step 3 into FrontPage.
Put the cursor somewhere in the form near the input fields, right-click, and select 'Form properties'.
The minimum you must do is to select 'Send to' and enter the email address.
Save the web page.
Publish the web page onto your web server.

How can I secure my SpreadsheetConverter calculator?

Place it on an HTTPS:-site and password protect it. How to password protect depends on which type of webserver you are using.

How do I enable compression on Apache?

By enabling compression, the amount of data you download will be 1/10. All modern browser support compression.

http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/index.htm

How make users login before using my calculator?

If you are using SpreadsheetConverter/ExcelEverywhere to HTML and want your users to login before they can use the calculator, the solution is to use the authentification of the web server to handle this. Both Internet Information Server (IIS) and Apache handles this.

If you use IIS, you can create normal Windows users and deny guest access to your web server.

If you use Apache, here is an article describing it: Protect Web sites with Apache Server's HTTP authentication system. Alternatively, you can program the authentification yourself. Secure your Web pages with custom authentication Or, you can use ASP.NET's form authentification. A simple solution is to store name + password in web.config. ASP.NET Form Authenticiation tutorial The SpreadsheetServer also handles logins.

ASP

How do I pre-populate input fields with data retrieved from a database?

There are several solution. For example, you can send them over an URL with the syntax http://www.foo.com/calc.htm?bar=56 will set the field call bar to 56. You name cells in Excel.

This assumes that you are prefilling an input cell. Here is a better solution that can be used to set any value.

If you know ASP, the simplest solution is to take the HTML page, make it into a ASP-page over replace statements like

p1A1 = 1234

with

p1A1 = <%= reference to variable which contains the value for cell A1 on sheet 1 %>

where 1234 is the default value that you set in Excel and which you want to read from the database instead.

This solution also works for PHP.

If you want to set constants, see <a href="http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/in itialize-values-on-server/Default.htm">How to initialize values on the server</a>

I don't seem to be able to view the ASP files once saved.

In order to view them, you need a local installation of Microsofts web server Internet Information Server (IIS). IIS is not included in Windows XP Home and has to be installed separately in NT4 and Windows 2000.

Here you can read how to install IIS on Windows XP

http://www.webwizguide.com/kb/asp_tutorials/installing_iis_w inXP_pro.asp

Here you can read how to install IIS on Vista

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-install- iis-on-windows-vista/

and

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732624.aspx

Does the ASP-pages work on Sun Java System ASP 4.0

We haven't tested on Sun Java System ASP, so we cannot guarantee that it will work.

You can read more about Sun Java System Active Server Pages 4.0 here:

http://wwws.sun.com/software/chilisoft/

Where does the calculation take place?

The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server.

Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version.

How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically?

If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following:

How to initialize values on the server

Visual Studio is too expensive, any alternatives?

If you do not want to purchase VS, there are free alternatives.

Microsoft® Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express provides you with everything you need to start building standards-friendly Web applications

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/

ASP.NET

How would I get the ASP.NET-page to update without clicking on the update button?

If you want that, the page will be submitted to the server, calculated, returned and redrawn by the browser each time. This will be rather slow.

Also, the cursor will not be placed in the correct cell.

However, for small web pages it might work. If you use ASP.NET, setting the autopostback-property will do this for you.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/webcontrols/webforms/libr ary/shared/AutoPostBack.asp

There is one complication: You need to add two lines.

Add

Request("xl_postback") != "1" ||

to the server side code on top so that the values are read from the form whenever the submit was done by selecting a new value in the listbox. and do a submit in onchange on the <select.

onchange="document.formc.xl_postback.value='99';
   document.formc.submit();"

As you see, we need to set a flag so that the server-side code that this is a recalc request and not a reset request. I used the existing hidden variable xl_postback, since this isn't used in the ASP.NET version. I changed the value from 1 to something else (99).

Do you have an example of how to Get and Set values of the getObject() in the VB (or C#) codebehind?

The object is a JSObject.

If you use C#, the "JSObject" indexer can be used to get and set object properties:

	
Object x = getObject();
Object prop1 = ((JSObject)x)["prop1"];
((JSObject)x)["prop2"] = 42;

You need to include the following namespaces:

using Microsoft.JScript;

Compile your application against the following assemblies:

Microsoft.JScript

We will change the code to generate a standard class some time in the future, these JSObjects are not that nice. This is already done in the JSP/Java-version.

Most people who use the ASP.NET-version accesses the data from the ASPX-page directly, instead of accessing the object.

I installed the DOTNET-framework but ASP.NET still do not work.

If you installed IIS after the DOTNET-framework, you get that behaviour.

The framework can't configure IIS before it is installed.

Solution: Execute the aspnet_regiis.exe in the Framework directory

Where does the calculation take place?

The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server.

Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version.

Visual Studio is too expensive, any alternatives?

If you do not want to purchase VS, there are free alternatives.

Microsoft® Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express provides you with everything you need to start building standards-friendly Web applications

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/

How can I store the form values in a database?

You want to store the values from your ASP.NET form into a database and repopopulate the form when the user returns back.

Connecting an ASP.NET form created with SpreadsheetConverter to a database is very easy if you know some programming and Visual Studio.

I get "Common Language Runtime detected an invalid program." when generating an ASP.NET page

You have run into a limit in Microsoft runtime engine CLR.

There are two workarounds:

1. Reduce the size of the original spreadsheet.

2. Use Classic ASP instead, which doesn't have these restrictions.

Can I create an ASP.NET usercontrol from the generated code?

Yes.

However, Visual Studio 2003 removes some styles part and renames the form from formc to formc[0].

You have to put the styles back, and make sure that the form is correctly referenced.

I have IIS web server and ASP.NET has authentification. Can I use this to password protect the pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript?

Yes.

Change the extension from .htm to .aspx. Then, you should be able to use ASP.NET authentification system.

How do I access the input and calculated values from the html page submitted?

If you use ASP.NET, there are two simple solutions:

1. Loop over the ASP.NET-controls , se

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/as pnet/Default.htm

2. Generate a pure HTML-form (Select this in SSC to ASP.NET) and set the action=".." to point at your ASP-code which loops over the request-parameters. You loop over the collection called Request.Form.

How do I publish my ASP.NET pages to my host?

Here are a number of good tutorials:

http://www.asp.net/learn/hosting/

Backend integration

I would like to fetch some data from other sites or from a web service, how can I do that?

It is easy to do, but requires some knowledge in JavaScript and HTML. Just add a JavaScript function that fetches the data and stores it into respective fields. If you look at the web page, you see that the form fields are named with the same names as the corresponding spreadsheet cells. You can make the new fields hidden and/or read-only.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support webqueries?

No, but it is easy to write code in ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP to insert and retrieve data.

What is the underlying language to support the functionality of the spreadsheets?

The HTML-version generates JavaScript, the ASP.NET version generates JScript, the JSP-version generates Java.

Can I write code to replace the macros in ASP or Java?

Yes, you can write functions of your own.

Are the cells accessable from C#, VB.NET and Java?

The cells are accessable, but not as a grid, but as variables and arrays. We optimized the grid away, since it in theory can contain 1,000,000 cells per sheet.

How do I pre-populate input fields with data retrieved from a database?

There are several solution. For example, you can send them over an URL with the syntax http://www.foo.com/calc.htm?bar=56 will set the field call bar to 56. You name cells in Excel.

This assumes that you are prefilling an input cell. Here is a better solution that can be used to set any value.

If you know ASP, the simplest solution is to take the HTML page, make it into a ASP-page over replace statements like

p1A1 = 1234

with

p1A1 = <%= reference to variable which contains the value for cell A1 on sheet 1 %>

where 1234 is the default value that you set in Excel and which you want to read from the database instead.

This solution also works for PHP.

If you want to set constants, see <a href="http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/in itialize-values-on-server/Default.htm">How to initialize values on the server</a>

Does SpreadsheetConverter support DDE funtionality?

No.

Billing, ordering, refunds

Is it possible to email me an invoice?

Yes, please contact the reseller SWREG or REGNOW where you bought the program.

In the receipt you got, there is a link to a nice printable invoice.

Where is the CD I ordered?

Please contact orders@regnow.com regarding the CD.

You can always download the program from our website:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm

The download is only 9MB.

What is Extended Download Service?

Regnow will also offer <em>Extended Download Service</em> for additional $6.99. This means that Regnow keeps a backup of your purchase, which is good if our download site is unavailable.

Browsers

Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component?

No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers.

There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page.

I get warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..."?

If you use Windows XP SP2 you might get a warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..." The warning only appears during testing and not when the web page is published to a web server.

Please upgrade to version 3.1.9 or later.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support Netscape?

SpreadsheetConverter for HTML version 2 support NS4 and IE4 and later.

SpreadsheetConverter for HTML version 3 requires NS7 and IE5 and later.

NS4 and IE4 is virtually non-existent nowadays.

The generated web pages do no work in Windows Mobile 2003

Use Opera instead. The SpreadsheetConverter pages work fine using Opera as the browser.

Presumably the IE version with Windows Mobile 2003 (Second Edition) does not contain a full implementation of Javascript.

Calculation

Does SpreadsheetConverter always calculate the correct result?

Our goal is that if no errors or warnings are displayed during the conversion, the resulting web page should give the same result as Excel.

If there are differences between Excel and SpreadsheetConverter, this is a bug. Please report the bug by email to support@spreadsheetconverter.com In general calculated results should be precisely identical to Excel up to the first 8 significant digits. Also, formatting of input numbers is handled differently. In Excel, if you enter 1.234567 and only want to show 2 decimals, you will see 1.23 but all calculations will use 1.234567. In SpreadsheetConverter, all calculations will use 1.23

Does SpreadsheetConverter handle the error values #N/A #ERROR #VALUE?

Yes, all error values will be seen as the single value NaN (Not-a-Number). All error values are mapped to the same value, so you cannot distinguish between #VALUE and #N/A for example.

Since not all users of web pages are used to using Excel, they may not be used to Excel's error values. Therefore, it is better to make sure that the error values are not shown to the user in order to avoid confusion.

I get NaN instead of my values.

SpreadsheetConverter sometimes has problem when mixing text and numbers in the same cell, for example a formula like

=if(A1>0,A1,"")

Replace formulas like this with

=if(A1>0,A1,0)

=if(A1>0,A1,#N/A)

Also, make sure that lookup tables contain values everywhere. Do not include the header in the range. Avoid mixing TEXT and NUMBERS.

SpreadsheetConverter only converts the first 1000 rows to html format - what is wrong?

SpreadsheetConverter automatically HIDES but does not delete rows below 1000. If you have lookup tables below row 1000, these will be part of the web page but invisible.

The reason is that no one wants a web page with 1000 rows. I takes too long time to download and show in the browser.

Workaround: Split the table between different worksheets or even better between workbooks.

218.46 isn't equal to 218.46.

It is a rounding problem.

D23 contains 218.46 but D24 contains 218.45999999999998

Instead of

=IF(D23<>D24,"ERROR","OK")

=IF(abs(D23-D24)>0.001,"ERROR","OK")

When I open the web page, where there should be calculations, all I get is a bunch of zeros.

Press the recalculate button. Automatic recalculation is turned off when the spreadsheet is too big.

How can I make calculated default values?

In Excel you can have a formula and then let the user overwrite it, but that is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter, since formulas can never be changed.

Workaround: You can implement calculated default values using 4 cells like this

B1: FALSE

B2: <formula for calculting default>

B3: 0

B4: =IF(B1,B2,B3)

If the checkbox is unset, the users defined value will be used, otherwise the calculated.

Test here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.htm

and spreadsheet here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.xls

Run off-line from CD

How can I distribute my web pages?

Best is to zip them before emailing them.

If you want to have a more professional installer, you can use Iexpress tool that is one of those undocumented components of Windows XP. Look in your XP windows\\system32 directory and double click on iexpress.exe. It will guide you through the process.

Can the client access these converted calculators without the need to be on-line?

Yes, the web page is self-contained and can be run from the harddisk or the CD.

Can I convert the HTML pages to a executable?

Yes, use an HTML to EXE converter.

There are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion which also works very well.

Charts

Does SpreadsheetConverter support charts?

SpreadsheetConverter for HTML supports 2D-charts: bar, column, pie and scatter.

SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP and ASP&ASP.NET only supports charts for pure HTML pages.

I have a chart but when I hide the table, the chart disappears.

It seems that Excel automatically hides the chart if the underlaying table is hidden. Solution: move the table to another worksheet.

I have a chart but all I get is a black rectangle.

You have to copy the swf-file to the same location as the web page? If you forget that, you get a black rectangle.

I upgraded to Flash player 8/9 and now I cannot test the charts.

Flash 8 and 9 have some extra security checks which will prevent testing from the local files system.

Do not be alarmed, this problem only occurs during testing and will not affect your customers and other users of the published web page. You do not need to change previously generated web pages.

Click for more information

I got the graphs to work properly w/ my chart when i test it - but when I post it to my website the chart is blank again.

You need to copy the whole folder created by SpreadsheetConverter to the web server, including the file with extension .swf

Controls: dropdown, checkbox, ...

I would like to be able to select values from a dropdown-list (select)

Lists created using Data-Validation-List in Excel will automatically be presented as dropdown-lists.

I would like to be able to have a checkbox

All input cells that contain TRUE/FALSE (or any localized version of it like WAHR in Germany), will automatically be presented as checkboxes.

I want to limit input to a range. Such as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

Either create a dropdown list in Excel using Data-Validation-List, or put a formula like =IF(AND(A1>0;A1<11;A1=INT(A1)),"","Enter value between 1 and 10") in the cell next to the input cell. Format the text red, so that it will stand out.

If have a formula like =IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100") but B6 isn't a checkbox on the web page.

Change the formula

=IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100")

into

=IF(B6=TRUE, 110, 100)

The text "TRUE" is not the same as TRUE and the "110" is not the same as 110, you need to remove the quotes.

Excel handles this better than SpreadsheetConverter, but sometimes even Excel will get unexcected behavior.

I have tried to create a page with checkboxes by entering true or false....doesn't do anything....says' no input'....now what?

If the cells isn't referenced by a formula, automatic detection will not work. You will have to make the background color yellow and select input cells using coloring.

The downloaded form shows the checked radio button as a number and not by name.

Microsoft implemented floating controls that way. Convert the number into a value using the function INDEX.

For example the formula

=INDEX({"one","two","three"},B6)

will convert the B6 number 1,2,3 into the text "one","two","three"

How do I create a checkbox?

The easiest way to get a check box is to put TRUE or FALSE into a cell A1 and check its value using =IF(A1, ... , ... ).

How do I create a combobox, also called pull-down menu?

If you create a combo box in Excel using Data-Validation-List or View-Toolbar-Forms, there will be a combobox on the web page.

For example see

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/time_date/time_d ate.htm

SpreadsheetConverter doesn't supported dropdown-lists created using embedded constrols.

How do I create a combobox with Data-Validation-List?

Steps to produce a dropdown list in Excel.

1. Put the values of the dropdown list into a set of cells, for example 'Yes' in H1 and 'No' in H2

2. Go to the cells where you want the dropdown list.

3. Select 'Validation' from the 'Data' menu

4. Select Allow=List

5. Set the Source to H1:H2

6. Press ok

Convert the page.

Long text will not wrap

Both input and calculated cells can wrap in version 4. You have to let the input cell go over several rows and merge the rows. (Just making the row high doesn't help).

You need to set "Wrap text" in the Format dialog for the cell.

How do I create a multi-line input textbox?

Merge several rows and make it an input cells.

Also, you need to set "Wrap text" in the Format dialog for the cell.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support spinner controls?

No.

How does the taborder work?

SpreadsheetConverter sets tabindex for each input cell, from left to right and from top to bottom. When at the last input cells IE will wrap around to the first input cell, and Netscape/Mozilla will wrap around to the first output cell.

Why doesn't Enter go to the next field?

Enter and HTML is a sad chapter, since someone early on defined that pressing Enter means submitting the form.

A text saying that 'Press tab or Update to update all calculations' always helps some users.

I have a dropdown list with 10%,20%... but SpreadsheetConverter shows 0.1, 0.2...?

SpreadsheetConverter cannot handle % in dropdown lists.

You have to place 100 times the percent value into the dropdown list, divide it by 100 when you read it, and the %-sign the cell to the ceft or right of the dropdown list.

I have a dropdown list with dates but SpreadsheetConverter shows 37000,37001,... ?

SpreadsheetConverter cannot handle dates in dropdown lists.

Instead use DATE to build a date. See

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm

What is your recommendation for TIME data entry -- e.g. time in and time out?

Use 24 hour clock, or if 12 hour clock is very important, use 2 fields one for 0-11 and a dropdown list for AM/PM and use TIME().

Or you can use TIME to build time values, for an example see

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm

To output date, use date formats, for example 'hh:mm'

There is also a problem with date formatting. In excel I asigned a date format 31-12-2009 and after conversion the asp-file shows 31/12/2009. Why?

We use the same format for dates as in regional settings. However, there might be issues. In the worst case, you might to have to change your input method and to like this:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/time_date/time_d ate.htm

Database

Instead of having my web form submit button send me an email, is it possible to store each submit in a database or file on my website?

Yes, you can use Frontpage extension for that.

You have to add a submit-button and have some kind of webserver to receive the submit.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/article/articleview/35/1 /1/Default.htm

Flash movie showing how to save into Access database using Frontpage extension:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/demo/fpg_mdb/fpg_mdb.htm

The advanced service will let you store the data into a database on our server. The data can be retrieved as HTML and Excel-reports.

Can SpreadsheetConverter let me upload an Excel file through a web form - extract the records, and write them to a SQL server DB?

No.

I have a calculator linked to a huge database that is updated daily. Does the database also have to be uploaded? How can I best maintain the spreadsheet?

SpreadsheetConverter for HTML cannot handle database connections. The only solution is to regenerate the web page each day. However, that doesn't seem to be a very good solution.

Is there a way to send the results from submit to a PHP MySQL Table?

SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard webform. When the user presses submit, the data is posted to a web page of your choice.

You will have to create a simple PHP-page that parse the parameters and creates an sql-insert statement and runs it towards your database.

This type of code is very simple and part of standard PHP-books.

For example see

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php/6

and how to store into a mySQL database, see here

http://www.timestretch.com/php_intro/?page=php_intro

At the last link, they have combined the HTML-form and the PHP-file into one file. This is not necessary. First have the HTML-page and only make sure the action points at your PHP-page that extracts the data and stores it into a database.

I noticed the one that calculates the distance between two cities. Yet, the database information was not shown on the resulting web page.

You can decide what to show to the user. The rest is hidden in JavaScript.

I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web.

SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution:

The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save spreadsheets using any browser. You can share a spreadsheet online and the users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a relational database. The data can be filtered, consolidated and accessed through reports and as Excel spreadsheets. Spreadsheets or single worksheets can be protected by password.

It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc.

You can read more at

http://www.spreadsheetserver.com

We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009.

How can I store the data into a MS Access database?

You can see a simple demo on how to do store the submitted data into an MS Access database using Frontpage at

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/demo/fpg_mdb/fpg_mdb.htm

(I am sorry, there are no comments in the movie, but you can single step forwards.)

Is there an option to connect the JSP version to a database, maybe integrate through some custom code written in Java ?

You get the full source of the JSP-page and the JavaBeans. It is easy to add your specific code to the JSP-apge to save/read that data into a database or similar.

If you want to see how the JSP-page and JavaBeans are structured, there is code at

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/websamples.htm

How can I save all submits into a CSV, comma separated file?

Use Frontpage extension. You will get a file on your webserver, where each set of answer is a row in the CSV-file.

Can the JavaBeans be saved into an Oracle database?

Yes, but you will have to supply the plumbing to the database yourself, either 1. You just serialize the JavaBeans 2. Or you map each individual input cell to a database column.

Tip: Name the cells in Excel, and those names will be used in the JavaBean.

I want PHP to save the resulting order configuration to MySQL using PHP.

SpreadsheetConverter creates a standard webform, you can either convert it into an php-file or just set the action of the post to php-script that takes all the parameters and saves them into a database.

If you name the input cells and calculated cells in Excel, then these names will be used in the web form.

How can I store the form values in a database?

You want to store the values from your ASP.NET form into a database and repopopulate the form when the user returns back.

Connecting an ASP.NET form created with SpreadsheetConverter to a database is very easy if you know some programming and Visual Studio.

Date & time calculations and I/O

Do you know of a way to skip holidays on a date calculation?

Use NETWORKDAYS(start_date,end_date,holidays)

Returns the number of whole working days between start_date and end_date. Working days exclude weekends and any dates identified in holidays. Use NETWORKDAYS to calculate employee benefits that accrue based on the number of days worked during a specific term.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support date calculations?

Yes.

You can see an example below, were we build the date using Excel's date function and substract the values.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm

SpreadsheetConverter will convert the date calculations into JavaScript.

I have a dropdown list with dates but SpreadsheetConverter shows 37000,37001,... ?

SpreadsheetConverter cannot handle dates in dropdown lists.

Instead use DATE to build a date. See

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm

What is your recommendation for TIME data entry -- e.g. time in and time out?

Use 24 hour clock, or if 12 hour clock is very important, use 2 fields one for 0-11 and a dropdown list for AM/PM and use TIME().

Or you can use TIME to build time values, for an example see

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm

To output date, use date formats, for example 'hh:mm'

There is also a problem with date formatting. In excel I asigned a date format 31-12-2009 and after conversion the asp-file shows 31/12/2009. Why?

We use the same format for dates as in regional settings. However, there might be issues. In the worst case, you might to have to change your input method and to like this:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/time_date/time_d ate.htm

Dreamweaver

How do I change the look-and-feel of the page?

The look-and-feel of the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter is defined by a number of style sheets in the header of the HTML-file. By changing the style sheet values the page layout will change.

You can also open up the page in FrontPage or Dreamweaver and change the layout and look-and-feel. All calculations will continue to work as normal.

I want to change the column width in Dreamweaver and Frontpage.

Regarding column width, best is to correct these in Excel and then regenerate the web page, the web page should be within 20% of the Excel width. We have made many tests to make sure that we set the columns width such that it works as expected in many different browsers.

An alternative is to open the regenerated page in Dreamweaver, switch to HTML-code view, and remove our width settings (see first in the <table).

The columns will collapse, and you can now set them using Dreamweaver.

Email

Can I send the web page as an interactive HTML-email?

Yes, you can send it. However, most email programs ignore JavaScript in email, and therefore recalculation will not work. JavaScript is disabled to prevent infection from viruses. Therefor it is better to publish the web site and email the link.

I do not want to use FrontPage server extension, any alternatives?

You can use our free or advanced service.

If your web server supports Perl, formmail.pl is an alternative. See http://www.formmail.com/

If you use a Windows server, look at formmail.asp

http://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp

or if you prefer ASP.NET

http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Formmail_in_ASP .NET

If you use PHP, here are some

http://www.dtheatre.com/scripts/formmail.php

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/29699.html

For Java, see

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/21178.html

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/6177.html

and "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group

http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip

I requested a receiver code but I did not get an email with the codes.

If you entered the email address correctly - you can try a second time - then most likely AOL has decided that the email with the receiver code is spam and has deleted it.

You have to try another email address.

What if I want a customer to receive a copy of what they submitted? How do I get the submitted data to come to me and them?

This will be part of the advanced service, not is not yet implemented (Oct-2008)

In order to prevent spammers to use your form to send spam to arbitrary email addresses, we have to make sure that there a human who submitted the form.

Before sending the copy to the submitter, he/she will have to enter a security code similar to the code at

https://secure.overture.com/s/dtc/center/?mkt=us

Suppose I survey 2000 students. I get 2000 e-mails. Do you have a macro or quick way to get the results back into a spreadsheet?

That functionality is part of our advanced service. The cost is $15/month.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/hosting/advanced-submit- service.htm

An alternative is to configure your own webserver, for example Frontpage extension can collect submitted data into a CSV-file, which easily is opened by Excel.

I have sent some htlm files to a few people. When they open them they are opening them in their email page. How can I make this stop happening?

Instead of attaching the HTML-files, attach the ZIP-file that SpreadsheetConverter generates. This will solve your problem and make the email much smaller. Then you have to tell the user to open the zip file, extract the files and click on the HTM-file.

How do I apply for the advance service?

Request a receiver code and check the advanced service. The receiver code for the free service and the advanced service is the same.

If you decide to continue to use it, and want to enable the full Advanced Service, contact sales@spreadsheetconverter.com

How do I create a submit form so that the form information goes to an email?

You can read about our submit support here

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/excel_form_submit_email. htm

Then, you create a form using Excel, start SpreadsheetConverter and select 'Submit'-button under 'Configure toolbar'.

The first time you add a submit button, you will have to request a receiver code, so that we know where to send the email.

The relevant section in the manual is found here:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/SpreadsheetConver ter%20Users%20Guide.htm#dialog_toolbar

Why can't I enter a mailto:-link, why do I need to submit through a webserver?

The contents of a web form cannot be emailed directly. You need to add a submit-button, the submit-button will send the data to a server, and the server can for example email the entered values.

Why do I get an email with fields with names lie p2C144?

If you name the cells in Excel, those names will be used instead of p2C144

The email with submitted data names the fields like p1A3, p1D3, p1E3

The email looks like this:

p1A3: 5 p1D3: 9,50 p1E3: 47,50

If you name the individual cells in Excel, these names will be used as names. Note that they must start with a letter, and only contain letters, digits and "_".

Also note that the Advanced Service sends you a snapshot of the whole form as it looked to the user.

I want the form to be emailed to different persons depending on the value of a dropdown list.

So in other words, there isn't anything to where we can add to the excel spreadsheet that would have a down down menu with a list of email addresses and when its submitted it would get sent in conjunction with the notice to whoever would get that, also to the person or persons selected for the drop down list in the spreadsheet??

The email is always mailed to the same address, at least if you use our Advanced or Free Service.

A workaround is to mail it to the same email address, and then have a filter in the email server that looks for a value and forwards the email to the right person.

Exchange and Outlook supports filters like this.

I will need to have the submissions sent to another email address, what do I do?

Request a new receiver code for the new email address, enter it into the wizard and regenerate the web page, and then publish the new page.

Can the submit buttom be configured to send an auto response to the person submitting the form as well as to me?

No, not directly.

However, if you named the cell in Excel where the user enters his email address "email", you can set up an auto-responder on your own email address.

How would you go about setting up different Forms with different email addresses for Submit?

Example - Some forms would go top Bob is shipping, another to Sally in accounting and yet another to Harry in IT. Is there a way to change the email addresses locally?

You need to request one receiver code for each email address, and then have that receiver code entered in the wizard when you generate the form.

Where can I change the e-mail of the Advanced Service to where the forms are send to?

The Advanced Service consists of two parts

1. The email looks like the web page

2. The fields are stored in a database for later retrival.

You get 1. by selecting Advanced Service in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard

You get 2. by using a recevier code for an email address that is known to SpreadsheetServer.

Error during conversion

I cannot convert this file... I keep getting Err 1004...

Do as the dialog says: Delete all VBA-code in all modules and in the spreadsheets. It is probably protected in some way.

What does the error message overlapping ranges mean?

SpreadsheetConverter tries to detect which datatype ranges contain. By doing that, we can generate much more efficient and compact code. Try to make sure that ranges only contain numbers or only texts.

If you get this error message, please verify the calculated values. If you see any unexpected NaN, you have to clean up the ranges.

What does the error message "Range should be ordered since it is used by a lookup operation" mean?

From the Excel documentation of VLOOKUP:

If range_lookup is TRUE, the values in the first column of table_array must be placed in ascending order: ..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ..., A-Z, FALSE, TRUE; otherwise VLOOKUP may not give the correct value. If range_lookup is FALSE, table_array does not need to be sorted.

Make sure that the range only contain the active part of the lookup table. Do not include the header in the range. Also make sure that the range is ordered otherwise reorder it.

What does "Don't forget that the 3rd argument of HLOOKUP/VLOOKUP must evaluate to a number between 1 and 51." mean?

The third argument of HLOOKUP is the column index. If the value of that argument is outside the range 1 and 51, for example 0, SpreadsheetConverter will not calculcate the correct result since you are making a lookup outside the range. This is just a warning.

Excel

What is the difference between SpreadsheetConverter and Excel's "save as HTML"?

Excel's own "save as HTML" exists in two versions, either you choose to create a non-interactive web page, and then Excel creates a static formatted table with all the values you see in Excel. The values cannot be changed.

If you instead select to save your spreadsheet as an interactive page, you will be able to change the contents of the cells, and the values will be recalculated. Microsoft does this by using a large ActiveX-component (2MB in size), which your users are only allowed to use if they own MS Office.

SpreadsheetConverter creates an interactive web page using JavaScript to do the calculations. The advantages of using web pages produced by SpreadsheetConverter are that they can be run on any browser, on any OS, and without any licenses.

Can I save the web page as an Excel workbook?

No, there is no direct saving functionality in the resulting web page.

However, since all of the fields are contained within a HTML-form, you can submit the form to a web server and store all of the field values in a file on the web server.

If you do not want to build this solution yourself, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML has built-in submit support, called the Advanced Service.

Another alternative is to use a web server enabled with the FrontPage server extensions, all fields will be stored into a tab-separated file on the server.

Does SpreadsheetConverter read .XLS files?

No, SpreadsheetConverter reads your Excel formulas and data and compiles them into a stand-alone program.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support macros, VBA, or custom functions?

SpreadsheetConverter does not support macros and VBA. Custom functions are supported. Please contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information.

If have a formula like =IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100") but B6 isn't a checkbox on the web page.

Change the formula

=IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100")

into

=IF(B6=TRUE, 110, 100)

The text "TRUE" is not the same as TRUE and the "110" is not the same as 110, you need to remove the quotes.

Excel handles this better than SpreadsheetConverter, but sometimes even Excel will get unexcected behavior.

I am interested in your product but need to know what your product does better than Excel's own "save as web page" built-in utility.

Save as web page in Excel can be done in two different ways: 1. static page 2. interactive page

When you save as static page, only the current contents of the cells are used, and you cannot change any values and by that trigger any recalculations.

When you save as interactive page, the resulting web page will use an ActiveX-component that will handle the recalculations. The page looks exactly as in Excel, and all people who wants to view the page needs to install the ActiveX-component from either their Office-CDs or from Microsofts website (the component is about 2 MB big). You are only allowed to use the ActiveX-component if you have an Office-license.

However, most SpreadsheetConverter customers do not buy our software in order to create static pages. The use it to create interactive pages. Typical examples of interactive pages are different kinds of calculators, for example engineering, tuition fees, return-of-investment calculations, or for creating order pages with builtin summation and postage fees. SpreadsheetConverter makes it possible to publish spreadsheets on the internet so that anyone can use them as long as they have access to a browser, no extra add-ins are needed.

It is also easy to improve the layout of the resulting web page using tools like MS Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver. It is very easy to mix the calculator with other graphical components like pictures and similar.

I want to paste a bunch of data into the several fields, can SpreadsheetConverter do this?

No.

Only single cells can be pasted in. More is not supported by the browsers.

Does SpreadsheetConverter allow the deployment of custom Toolbars (.xlb files) and Add-In Applications (.xla files)?

No.

Once you generated the web page using SpreadsheetConverter, neither you or your visitors needs Excel.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support DDE funtionality?

No.

How do I create something like If A1=1, 5; If A2=1.5, 6; If A3=2, 7; If A4=2.5, 8; If A5=3, 9?

You nest the ifs like this:

=if(a1=1, 5, if(a2=1.5, 6, if(a3=2.7, 7, if(a4=2.5, 8, if(a5=3, 9, 0)))))

How do I reduce the size of an Excel spreadsheet?

This tip is taken from the new book F1 Get the Most out of Excel! (See http://www.exceltip.com/pl-f1_index )

By reducing the size, the conversion will go faster and the web page might be smaller.

To reduce the workbook size:

1. Press Ctrl+End to find the last cell in the used area within the worksheet. In the screenshot, the last cell is E17.

2. Find the last cell containing data in the worksheet. In the screenshot, the last cell containing data is cell C11.

3. Delete all the rows between the cells containing data to the row of the last cell in the used area. In the screenshot, the rows to delete are 12:17.

4. Delete all columns to the right of the column of the last cell containing data, up to the column of the last cell in the used area. In the screenshot, the columns to delete are D:E

5. To quickly delete the rows, select the first row to delete (row 12 in the screenshot), press Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow, To quickly delete the columns, select the first column to delete (column D in the screenshot), and press Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow, press Shift+F10 and from shortcut menu click Delete.

6. Repeat the steps above for each worksheet in the entire workbook. Press Ctrl+S to save the file.

Is there a way to just display certain cells and hide those you do not want to see?

There are two solutions:

1. Move the cells to another worksheet.

2. Hide the row or column containing the cells you want to hide.

Can users edit the spreadsheet in real time?

No, formulas are always protected.

Does the user have to have Excel on their pc?

No.

Formatting

Does SpreadsheetConverter support cell formatting such as background color and border styles?

Yes.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support conditional formatting?

No.

Input cells alignment is not perfect. The second input cell still dropped slightly below the others.

Set vertical align = center.

The column is narrower/wider than it is in Excel.

The browser always has the final word regarding column width. You can try if layout=fixed helps If you are running version 3. The same goes for heights. Normally these problems occurs if some column contain too wide data. Merge cells to make them fit.

In Excel one of my spreadsheets fits onto A4 height, but when I convert with either HTML or ASP, the converted sheet is longer than A4. This is a problem because I want users to be able to print out one of the sheets.

Unless you set layout=fixed, the rows will be higher on the web page than in Excel.

However layout=fixed will make the web pages look cramped, it is better to let the web pages become higher.

How do I specify C3 to have a $ currency symbol in it's total?

Ctrl-1 to open the format dialog, and select currency format.

I have set the formatting so that all zero values are invisible. When I convert the spreadsheet to web page, all of the zeros show up. Is there any way to hide the display of zeros on the web page?

You have to use a formula to solve that problem. For example, if you have =A1 in A2, replace it by =if(A1=0,"",A1)

I would like to use an excel sheet for making bookings. How do I let the excel sheet know I want to input text into the sheet.

The logic is that if you use the value for a mathematical operation, it will be a number. If you do not refer to it or refer to is as a text (e.g. =if(a1="","Enter a value",""), it will a text-field.

If you use 'Automatic detection', only cells referred to will be input fields.

If Automatic detection doesn't work, you have to use coloring. Set the background colors of all cells you want the user to edit to an arbitrary unique color. Then, select coloring and select the color. (If you do not want your input cells to have this color in the finished spreadsheet, there is an option for that.)

How do I protect certain cells so that entries cannot be made to them?

The user can only edit input cells. All other cells and formulas are automatically protected on the web page.

Is there a way to just display certain cells and hide those you do not want to see?

There are two solutions:

1. Move the cells to another worksheet.

2. Hide the row or column containing the cells you want to hide.

My image or clipart has a grey background.

When you insert a clipart, you might get a grey background.

Solution: 1. Right-click on the image and select Format picture 2. Select Colors and Lines tab 3. Change Fill-color to Automatic (or you background color) from 'No fill'

Does the SpreadsheetConverter support hidden rows? There are many rows used for internal calculation steps, containing data that should not be seen by the user.

The rows will be hidden on the web page. If the contents is referenced by formulas, they will be part of the resulting web page (not visible for the user).

Columns and sheets can be hidden too.

How can I change the border color around input cells when the thin borders option is selected?

This is not as easy as it should be :-)

There are two ways:

1. Instead of thin border, no border and set the borders of the cells in Excel. There you can select the color.

2. Generate the web page and open the source. Replace #000000 in

style='border:1px solid #000000; width:100% '

by the color, for example #ff0000

style='border:1px solid #ff0000; width:100% '

to get red borders.

How can negative numbers be presented with parenthesis, i.e. -250.00 should be represented as (250.00)?

This is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter v 3.x. We didn't think it was needed, since no one on the web understands it :-)

Workaround:

You need to solve it using IF + TEXT.

=if(A1<0, "(" & -A1 & ")", A1)

If you need to format the number, replace

-A1 above with something like

TEXT(-A1,"#,##0.00")

Thus, something like this

=IF(A1<0, "(" & TEXT(-A1,"#,##0.00") & ")", TEXT(A1,"#,##0.00"))

I use the ASP.NET version. There is only a problem with empty cells. They show up with a 0-value and aren't empty. Why?

The 0 is actually a feature, SSC has deduced that the cell can only numbers, and will place a 0 in the cell when the user leaves the cell.

Solution: If A1 is one of your input cells, add the formula somewhere in the spreadsheet: =A1="" (or any other formula that make SSC think A1 contains a text).

Frontpage

I would like to add a SpreadsheetConverter web page to my web. I use FrontPage.

If you have navigational bars on top or to the left in your web site, you cannot use 'Insert-file' into an existing web page. If you do FrontPage will create a non-working web page!
Instead you must use the following method to add the page:

Select File-Import and press Add File. Select the file generated by SpreadsheetConverter.
Open the newly inserted page. Note that it contains no navigational bars.
Select Format-Theme and select the default theme.
Select Format-Shared Borders and apply to the selected page.
Select View-Navigation and using drag-and-drop move the inserted page to the location where you want it.
Right-click on the page that you just moved and make sure that ’Included in Navigation bar’ is selected.

Now, your page should appear like the other pages in your web site and the navigation structure should include the new page.

How do I change the look-and-feel of the page?

You can also open up the page in FrontPage or Dreamweaver and change the layout and look-and-feel. All calculations will continue to work as normal.

How do I create a web form that uses a FrontPage server extensions enabled web server?

When you create a form to be used by a web server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (for example Microsoft IIS or Apache), follow these steps:

Create the Excel spreadsheet.
Name the input and output cells in Excel (This step is not mandatory, but makes the result easier to understand).
Create the web page using SpreadsheetConverter.
Start FrontPage.
Load the web page created in step 3 into FrontPage.
Put the cursor somewhere in the form near the input fields, right-click, and select 'Form properties'.
The minimum you must do is to select 'Send to' and enter the email address.
Save the web page.
Publish the web page onto your web server.

I do not want to use FrontPage server extension, any alternatives?

You can use our free or advanced service.

If your web server supports Perl, formmail.pl is an alternative. See http://www.formmail.com/

If you use a Windows server, look at formmail.asp

http://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp

or if you prefer ASP.NET

http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Formmail_in_ASP .NET

If you use PHP, here are some

http://www.dtheatre.com/scripts/formmail.php

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/29699.html

For Java, see

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/21178.html

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/6177.html

and "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group

http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip

Will Frontpage extensions disappear?

Windows SharePoint Service will replace Frontpage Extensions, see

http://www.sharepointcustomization.com/default.aspx

Instead of having my web form submit button send me an email, is it possible to store each submit in a database or file on my website?

Yes, you can use Frontpage extension for that.

You have to add a submit-button and have some kind of webserver to receive the submit.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/article/articleview/35/1 /1/Default.htm

Flash movie showing how to save into Access database using Frontpage extension:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/demo/fpg_mdb/fpg_mdb.htm

The advanced service will let you store the data into a database on our server. The data can be retrieved as HTML and Excel-reports.

Is the converted html document able to be edited in FrontPage?

Yes.

How do I insert an SpreadsheetConverter page into Frontpage?

Create a new web page in Frontpage, then do as "Insert a spreadsheet on an existing web page" on page 42 in the SpreadsheetConverter manual.

We would need to modify or add-on some code since for our purpose we need to add some additional features. Is this possible? (The type of things we need to add are security and usage tracking.)

We generate a plain HTML-form, as long as you do not rename the controls, you can edit the web page.

How do I know if my web host installed FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) on my account?

You can confirm that FPSE was successfully installed and are functional by browsing to the page "_vti_inf.html" at the root of your domain. For example - http://www.mydomainname.com/_vti_inf.html . If the FrontPage configuration page loads then that is your confirmation page. A "page cannot be found" or other such server error would indicate that FPSE needs to be installed or reinstalled by the host.

From http://www.publishermvps.com/WebDesign/FAQ/tabid/30/Default. aspx

Is Frontpage Extensions still supported by Microsoft?

No, Frontpage Extensions has been discontinued by Microsoft.

However, as of December 18, 2010, Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) 2002 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 RTM is supported by Ready-to-Run Software. For support and servicing, contact Ready-to-Run Software, Inc

You can download Frontpage Extensions for IIS 7.0 at <a href="http://www.iis.net/community/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=163 0">http://www.iis.net/community/

Functions

Is the function XYZ supported?

Please refer to the current list of supported functions:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/products/supported-excel -functions.htm

We constantly add more supported functions. If there is a function XYZ you need, please let us know, and we may prioritize it.

Does SpreadsheetConverter handle the error values #N/A #ERROR #VALUE?

Yes, all error values will be seen as the single value NaN (Not-a-Number). All error values are mapped to the same value, so you cannot distinguish between #VALUE and #N/A for example.

What functions does SpreadsheetConverter support?

See the SpreadsheetConverter Functions document at http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/products/supported-excel -functions.htm

If the function you're looking for is not there, let us know.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support arrays?

Yes, array syntax such as {3;4;5} is supported.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support functions like MMULT that return arrays?

No, not yet.

Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to change cell formulas at runtime?

No, SpreadsheetConverter protects formulas from change.

How can I make WORKDAY handle holidays?

The WORKDAY function has a 3rd argument which points to a range of holidays. You have to maintain that range yourself. See the documention for WORKDAY in Excel.

How do I make formula cells editable (if the user wants to overwrite the value calculated by formula)?

Currently formulas cannot be overwritten.

Workaround: Have 2 fields + checkbox. If the checkbox is set use the calculated value, if it is unset, you the override value.

Do you know of a way to skip holidays on a date calculation?

Use NETWORKDAYS(start_date,end_date,holidays)

Does SpreadsheetConverter support lookup-functions?

Yes.

I need function XXX?

If a function you need isn't supported, please let us know.

Workaround: If the precision you need isn't high, create a table of XXX-values. The Copy the table and make Paste-Special-Values only.

Then use INDEX to lookup your value in the table.

Is there a way to have SpreadsheetConverter support a new function?

Yes, if you can define the function yourself, you can make it a user defined function, and the SpreadsheetConverter generated code will call it.

We also add new functions by request.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support date calculations?

Yes.

You can see an example below, were we build the date using Excel's date function and substract the values.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm

SpreadsheetConverter will convert the date calculations into JavaScript.

How do I create something like If A1=1, 5; If A2=1.5, 6; If A3=2, 7; If A4=2.5, 8; If A5=3, 9?

You nest the ifs like this:

=if(a1=1, 5, if(a2=1.5, 6, if(a3=2.7, 7, if(a4=2.5, 8, if(a5=3, 9, 0)))))

My spreadsheet uses OFFSET and INDIRECT, which isn't supported.

Try using INDEX instead.

Can users edit the spreadsheet in real time?

No, formulas are always protected.

Reference card for JavaScript

Look at

http://javascript-reference.info/

from Visibone, which has a lot of nice printed reference cards.

http://www.visibone.com/

Does SpreadsheetConverter support user-defined functions, macros, VBA or Visual Basic?

Macros, VBA, Visual Basic are not handled by SpreadsheetConverter, only Excel formulas and about 300 Excel functions.

However, if you can translate these functions yourself, the generated code can call it.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/support/user-defined-fun ctions/

Why doesn't COUNT, COUNTA, COUNTBLANK work 100% as in Excel?

The problem with COUNT is due to Excel's complex empty cell rule.

Place =A1 in A2 and you get 0. Why isn't A2 empty? It is the same as A1. But if you do COUNTBLANK(A1:A2), the result is 1.

We are working in this.

General

Does SpreadsheetConverter support references to other workbooks?

SpreadsheetConverter supports references between worksheets within a workbook, but not off-book references.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support arrays?

Yes, array syntax such as {3;4;5} is supported.

Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to change cell formulas at runtime?

No, SpreadsheetConverter protects formulas from change.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support named cells?

Yes. It is recommended that you name the cells in Excel if you use submit. The names in Excel will be used to name the fields in the submitted form.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support Pivot Tables?

No.

Does your product convert Excel files with multiple (linked) sheets inside? -- also including formulas, etc?

It converts the whole workbook including all worksheets and links between worksheets.

I get warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..."?

Please upgrade to version 3.1.9 or later.

I noticed the one that calculates the distance between two cities. Yet, the database information was not shown on the resulting web page.

You can decide what to show to the user. The rest is hidden in JavaScript.

I would like to use an excel sheet for making bookings. How do I let the excel sheet know I want to input text into the sheet.

The logic is that if you use the value for a mathematical operation, it will be a number. If you do not refer to it or refer to is as a text (e.g. =if(a1="","Enter a value",""), it will a text-field.

If you use 'Automatic detection', only cells referred to will be input fields.

Does the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter for HTML work offline.

Yes, you can also save the web page to your local harddisk, and the calculations still works.

Can the client access these converted calculators without the need to be on-line?

Yes, the web page is self-contained and can be run from the harddisk or the CD.

My workbook contains links to other web page, for example elememts.htm, after conversion, they do not work

SpreadsheetConverter always generates a folder where all the files for a specific spreadsheet is stored.

You have to edit the generated page. Depending on where you place the element.htm, replace elements.htm by ../elements.htm

Generate

I create input fields using the drawing toolbar. They do not work.

Input cells are created by using one or more cells in the sheet. You cannot use the drawing toolbar.

Hosting

Does the ISP who is hosting my site have to publish the calculator on to the webserver?

No, it is a plain web page.

IIS, Microsoft Information Server

How do I create a web form that uses a FrontPage server extensions enabled web server?

When you create a form to be used by a web server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (for example Microsoft IIS or Apache), follow these steps:

Create the Excel spreadsheet.
Name the input and output cells in Excel (This step is not mandatory, but makes the result easier to understand).
Create the web page using SpreadsheetConverter.
Start FrontPage.
Load the web page created in step 3 into FrontPage.
Put the cursor somewhere in the form near the input fields, right-click, and select 'Form properties'.
The minimum you must do is to select 'Send to' and enter the email address.
Save the web page.
Publish the web page onto your web server.

How can I secure my SpreadsheetConverter calculator?

Place it on an HTTPS:-site and password protect it. How to password protect depends on which type of webserver you are using.

How make users login before using my calculator?

If you use IIS, you can create normal Windows users and deny guest access to your web server.

Configure IIS for ASP.NET

For Windows XP, see

http://www.wherecanibuyit.co.uk/computer/iis5_on_xp.html

For Windows Vista, see

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=206237

http://www.iis.net/articles/view.aspx/IIS7/Deploy-an-IIS7-Se rver/Installing-IIS7/Install-IIS7-on-Vista

How do I publish my ASP.NET pages to my host?

Here are a number of good tutorials:

http://www.asp.net/learn/hosting/

Input cells and input fields

How do I make formula cells editable (if the user wants to overwrite the value calculated by formula)?

Currently formulas cannot be overwritten.

Workaround: Have 2 fields + checkbox. If the checkbox is set use the calculated value, if it is unset, you the override value.

I create input fields using the drawing toolbar. They do not work.

Input cells are created by using one or more cells in the sheet. You cannot use the drawing toolbar.

I cannot enter free text into a cell. Is there a trick? List boxes seem to be working, but I'm trying to do something as basic as having the user type in a company name.

You have to set the background color of all input cells to yellow and then select input cells using color.

You can also let SpreadsheetConverter make all unlocked cells input cells.

I would like to use an excel sheet for making bookings. How do I let the excel sheet know I want to input text into the sheet.

The logic is that if you use the value for a mathematical operation, it will be a number. If you do not refer to it or refer to is as a text (e.g. =if(a1="","Enter a value",""), it will a text-field.

If you use 'Automatic detection', only cells referred to will be input fields.

How can I clear all input cells and reset them to their default value?

During generate, select to include a reset button. When pressed, all values will be reset.

I want a numeric input field.

If you want to force a cells to only allow numeric input, you have to make sure it is only used by numerical functions.

My spreadsheet contains no formulas and the generated form doesn't contain any fields I can edit.

You need to help SpreadsheetConverter identify all the cells you want the user to edit in your spreadsheet.

The automatic detection only works if there are formulas.

Either add formulas, or if you want a form only, color all the input cells orange, and select orange in the wizard.

How can I make calculated default values?

In Excel you can have a formula and then let the user overwrite it, but that is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter, since formulas can never be changed.

Workaround: You can implement calculated default values using 4 cells like this

B1: FALSE

B2: <formula for calculting default>

B3: 0

B4: =IF(B1,B2,B3)

If the checkbox is unset, the users defined value will be used, otherwise the calculated.

Test here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.htm

and spreadsheet here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.xls

Installation

I have installation problems!

Please view http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm

The first time I start SpreadsheetConverter from the start-menu, it asks if I should enable the macros?

Yes. If you do not enable it, SpreadsheetConverter will not work.

Why do I get "A document with the name 'xlew1.xla is already open. You cannot ..." when I start SpreadsheetConverter from the start menu?

You only need to start SpreadsheetConverter from the start menu in the following two circumstances:

- The first time you run SpreadsheetConverter after installing it.

- After selecting ‘Disable auto-start’ from the SpreadsheetConverter menu in Excel.

SpreadsheetConverter is an Excel Add-in, and is automatically started each time Excel is started. You get the error “Excel file already opened” message because SpreadsheetConverter is already started and you are trying to start a second copy of the program.

I installed the program, but there is no SpreadsheetConverter-menu in Excel

Most likely, Excel has disabled SpreadsheetConverter. Excel does that when Excel crashes during start-up.

If you use Excel 2007:

Click on the round football top left corner in Excel.

At the bottom you find "Excel Options".

Select Add-ins.

At the bottom you can select "Disabled Items". Select GO and enable them.

See this screenshot

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/support/disabled-addin-i n-excel-2007.png

If you use Excel 2003:

In Excel 2000-2003, select Tools-Customize. Then, select the tab called "Commands"

Under Tools, there are additional commands like Tools-Addins and Tools-COM addins. Drag these entries to the Excel tool menu.

Then, select COM-addins from the Excel Tools menu and make sure SpreadsheetConverter is selected.

Here is a movie descring how: http://screencast.com/t/Kr09dbZQNgUn

You can read more about disabled addins and Office here

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms268871(VS.80).aspx

If you are using v 3.5 or earlier, click on the 'Browse' button and select xlew1.xla from the directory where you installed SpreadsheetConverter.

Macros in this workbook are disabled because of the security level is high, ...

Part of SpreadsheetConverter is written as an Excel macro. The first time you use SpreadsheetConverter, i.e, when you select 'Start SpreadsheetConverter', the security level cannot be high. Temporarily change the security level to medium, select 'Start SpreadsheetConverter' (or 'Install SpreadsheetConverter into Excel'), and then change the security level back to high.

The security level is changed from the 'Tools' menu under 'Macro-Security'.

Please note that the change is only required the first time you run SpreadsheetConverter, after that every time you start Excel, SpreadsheetConverter will start automatically, even if your security level is high.

I have both more than one Excel installed on one computer. Is it possible to register for both versions and if so how?

Yes, it is possible if you use different versions of SpreadsheetConverter, for example v3 and v4.

I upgrade from version 2 to version 3. What is the preferred method for removing the older version as it still shows up on my menu bar?

Exit Excel and uninstall it using Add/Remove program in the Control panel.

SpreadsheetConverter worked fine but now the SpreadsheetConverter menu does not appear when I open my Excel.

If the menu disappears, you do not have to install SpreadsheetConverter again. Selecting 'Install SpreadsheetConverter into Excel' should be enough.

If you are using Excel 2007, click on the round football top left corner in Excel.

At the bottom you find "Excel Options".

Select Add-ins.

At the bottom you can select "Disabled Items". Select GO and enable them.

If you are not using Excel 2007 go to Tools-Add-ins and see if you have something called 'XLEW' or 'SpreadsheetConverter Add-in'. If so, set the checkbox alongside and click on OK.

If SpreadsheetConverter is not present in the list (Tools-Add-ins...), click on the 'Browse' button and select xlew1.xla from the directory where you installed SpreadsheetConverter.

I get "This workbook has lost its VBA project, ActiveX and any other programmability-related features" during installation

You have an Excel-installation without VBA. VBA is needed by SpreadsheetConverter.

Load the Excel or Office-CD and select VBA under Shared Components.

Do you have any installation instructions for running on a Tomcat server.

If you install Tomcat using the default paths, and set the paths as shown in the wizard - you have to move the cursor over the label so see the whole path - it works.

You can test your Tomcat installation by opening up

http://localhost:8080/examples/jsp

Please try the examples included by tomcat and make sure that these works.

I get installer verification failed during installation?

You have downloaded a corrupt installer program. Please delete the file and download again.

The SpreadsheetConverter menu button disappears after restarting

Start Excel, Select Tools-Addins and select XLEW or SpreadsheetConverter.

Apache Tomcat 5.5 and later complains about compilation errors when regenerating the web page

The JVM running the tomcat server has already loaded the servlet's .class file and initialised the servlet object. It won't reload the .class file or restart the servlet automatically. One solution is to stop and then restart tomcat, so it will use the new .class file.

Another solution is to use the manager application (see below) to issue a reload command for your web application. This will force tomcat to reload the new .class files without having to shutdown tomcat. For example: If your web application is called myapp and located in webapp/myapp, then using the following URL will use the manager to reload the application:

http://localhost:8080/manager/reload?path=/myapp (Your server name and application name will be different.)

For more information, see

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t140821-recompile-jsp- with-java-classes.html

Can I install the software on more than one computer?

If you are the only user of the two computers, you can request permission to install our software on both by sending an e-mail to sales@spreadsheetconverter.com.

How do I update my installation?

Download the last version from our website and install it.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm

Where is the CD I ordered?

Please contact orders@regnow.com regarding the CD.

You can always download the program from our website:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm

The download is only 9MB.

Dot.Net 2.0 not installed

Please, copy the following path and open it using the Windows Explorer

%SYSTEMROOT%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v2.0.50727

and check if you have any files there.

(%SYSTEMROOT% is a system variable depending which Windows you use)

This is .Net 2.0 installer

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=085 6eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en

or search on google for ".net 2.0 installer"

Also, make sure you have the necessary service packs for .Net 2.0 installed. Have you enabled WIndows Update?

Integration

I want to make the calculator part of an existing web page?

If you ever need to insert a spreadsheet on an existing page in your web, just follow the steps below.

Create the spreadsheet in Excel.
Convert the spreadsheet to a web page using SpreadsheetConverter.
Open the resulting web page in your html editor.
Using your html editor, also open the existing page where the spreadsheet is to be inserted.
In the <head> … </head> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with  and ending with  and copy it (including the leading and trailing comment) to the end of the <head> … </head> section of the existing page.
In the <body> … </body> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with  and ending with  and copy it to where you want the spreadsheet to appear in the <body> … </body> section of the existing page.
(optional) Copy the onload-event from <body into your <body-tag. Typically the onload-event looks like this:
<body onload="initial_update();document.formc.pA1A.focus();">
It initializes the form and places the cursor at the first field.

Is there a way to select the "charset" to none insted of charset=UTF-8.

There is no simple solution, however this should work:

Let SpreadsheetConverter generate an UTF-8 file and then convert it into a suitable encoding.

One such tool is iconv, which is free.

Download iconv.exe and execute

iconv.exe -t windows-1252 -f utf-8 old.htm > new.htm

and then change

the row

---

How to download and install iconv:

Download the file called

libiconv-1.8.0-2003.02.01-1.exe

and

gettext-0.11.5-2003.02.01-1.exe

from

http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml#hdr1

and install them into the same directory, for example c:\\iconv

In the bin dir of the installation, i.e. c:\\iconv\\bin you find iconv.exe (and some dlls it needs).

Internationalization, localization

I use a localized Excel for language XYZ, does SpreadsheetConverter support it?

In Germany and many other European countries, a comma is used to signify a decimal point. SpreadsheetConverter formats numbers in your spreadsheet in exactly the same way as your own version of Excel.

SpreadsheetConverter should be able to support most localized versions of Excel. In the Excel for Belarus, People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, the local formatting will not be recognized. US formatting of dates and numbers will be used instead.

Is there a way to select the "charset" to none insted of charset=UTF-8.

There is no simple solution, however this should work:

Let SpreadsheetConverter generate an UTF-8 file and then convert it into a suitable encoding.

One such tool is iconv, which is free.

Download iconv.exe and execute

iconv.exe -t windows-1252 -f utf-8 old.htm > new.htm

and then change

the row

---

How to download and install iconv:

Download the file called

libiconv-1.8.0-2003.02.01-1.exe

and

gettext-0.11.5-2003.02.01-1.exe

from

http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml#hdr1

and install them into the same directory, for example c:\\iconv

In the bin dir of the installation, i.e. c:\\iconv\\bin you find iconv.exe (and some dlls it needs).

J2ME, Java for mobile phones

Is RAND not supported by SpreadsheetConverter for Java phones?

You can make a simple random generator using NOW. Place

=NOW()

in A1 and

=INT((A1*86400-INT(A1*86400))*10)

and you will get a "random" number between 0-9

Why are the cells only limited to column A?

Mobile phone screens are very narrow and only one column fit into the screen

SpreadsheetConverter doesn't find my J2ME emulator

Make sure you install them at their default location.

Power users can edit the file j2me_emulators.txt

I need a general spreadsheet program for my J2ME mobile phone

Please look at Microcalc.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/microcalc/

http://mixa.dev.juga.ru/microcalc/mc_manual.html

There is a newer version available called MC2 lisp-based J2ME spreadsheet

http://mixaz.eatj.com/mc2/

Java

Where does the calculation take place?

The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server.

Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version.

Is there an option to connect the JSP version to a database, maybe integrate through some custom code written in Java ?

You get the full source of the JSP-page and the JavaBeans. It is easy to add your specific code to the JSP-apge to save/read that data into a database or similar.

If you want to see how the JSP-page and JavaBeans are structured, there is code at

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/websamples.htm

Do you have any installation instructions for running on a Tomcat server.

If you install Tomcat using the default paths, and set the paths as shown in the wizard - you have to move the cursor over the label so see the whole path - it works.

You can test your Tomcat installation by opening up

http://localhost:8080/examples/jsp

Please try the examples included by tomcat and make sure that these works.

Can the JavaBeans be saved into an Oracle database?

Yes, but you will have to supply the plumbing to the database yourself, either 1. You just serialize the JavaBeans 2. Or you map each individual input cell to a database column.

Tip: Name the cells in Excel, and those names will be used in the JavaBean.

SpreadsheetConverter doesn't find my JDK.

You can point to the JDK to use by setting JAVA_HOME. Set it so that JAVA_HOME + "\\bin\\javac.exe" exists

http://wso2.org/project/wsas/java/1.1/docs/setting-java-home .html

How can I use the generated JavaBeans?

SpreadsheetConverter generates a JSP-page and a JavaBeans. In your case, you can just ignore the JSP-page and only use the JavaBeans. Each JavaBeans is totally self-contained and can be used as a subroutine. First call the setters, then the getters. The JavaBeans will recalculate automatically when the first getter is called.

At http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/websamples.htm you can see the source code generated.

Tip: Name the cells in Excel, and those names will be used in the JavaBean.

One problem we find when integrating products like these are JAR file collisions, in particular common third party JARs. Do you have a list somewhere of what third party JARs (open source or commercial) that you use? Or are you doing this all through JNI and don't need extra JARs?

Each JSP-page and JavaBean generated is independent from other generated pages. (So there is some code duplication, but it simplifies maintenance, versioning etc....). Only standard Java-classes are used. We do not do JNI, all code is pure Java.

Apache Tomcat 5.5 and later complains about compilation errors when regenerating the web page

http://localhost:8080/manager/reload?path=/myapp (Your server name and application name will be different.)

For more information, see

http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t140821-recompile-jsp- with-java-classes.html

How can I collect the submitted data using Java?

SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard HTML-form.

You loop over the request parameters, either by looping over the parameters, or by using getParameter.

Use getParameter method to get form element values

For example, if you named cell A1 "firstname", you can access the first name using the formula

request.getParameter("firstname")

---

Reading data using a servlet

http://www.nakov.com/inetjava/lectures/part-3-webapps/InetJa va-3.3-HTML-Forms-and-Parameters.html

http://www.spreadsheet-converter.com:8080/servlets-examples/

http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=1297854

and from the book "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group

http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip

---

Or directly inside a JSP-page. The advantage of using a JSP-page is that all you need is to copy the file to the server. Servlets may require changing a configuration file.

<%@page import="java.util.*" %>
<%
	String username, password;
	if(request.getParameter("firstname") == null)
		username = "";
	else
		username = request.getParameter("firstname");
	
%>

JavaScript

Reference card for JavaScript

Look at

http://javascript-reference.info/

from Visibone, which has a lot of nice printed reference cards.

http://www.visibone.com/

Licensing

Can I remove the 'Powered by SpreadsheetConverter' logo?

You are allowed to delete the logo. Easiest is to replace the poweredby-file with an empty 1x1 image.

We need to find more customers in order to get the resources we need to improve the program and to keep the cost down. You help us a lot by keeping the logo with the link.

When bought, are there no more licence-fee or whatever to pay?

No.

If I understand it correctly, I buy 1 licence, so I can use it ONLY for 1 website?

If you have a Standard edition license, you may publish converted web pages on any number of web servers within your own organization.

To publish converted web pages on external sites, you need a license for the Professional edition.

Must I report to you on which site it is used?

No, not yet.

I would like to understand how you licence for servers with ASP and Java (cost; installation...)?

We charge a small one-time license fee for each computer you install the program in. There are no extra fees per server, page or visitor.

After reading the information on your website, I concluded that no run-time license is needed. Would you please confirm this fact?

True. You do not need a run-time license for any current version.

Things like this might change in later versions but we will not change it for the current versions. For example, we are thinking of having two version of the product, one to be used on a single site, and one for web developers who can publish the web pages on many sites.

Can I install the software on more than one computer?

If you are the only user of the two computers, you can request permission to install our software on both by sending an e-mail to sales@spreadsheetconverter.com.

If I use your software for my customers web site, what is the least amount of acknowledgement, notification, logos, etc. that I have to provide regarding your company in order to comply with the EULA and license agreement?

The only thing you need to keep is the Copyright statement in the HTML-source. This will never been seen by your customers unless they do view source in the web browser.

Also, if you want to redistribute it, you will need to upgrade to the Pro edition once it is released.

You are allowed to delete the logo.

Linux

Can we use this on our Linux website?

Yes, SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript and SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP generates pages that can be hosted by Apache on Linux. I recommend you start with SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript, since they are plain web pages, nothing needs to be installed on your web server.

Apple Macintosh and OSX

Is Microsoft Excel on Macintosh supported?

We currently do not support Macintosh Excel for creating web pages, but of course Mac users can use the resulting web pages.

We regularly test on Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox for Mac.

Can a web page created with SpreadsheetConverter be published on a Mac?

Yes.

Is SpreadsheetConverter supported in Mac OS - X or 9.2 enviornment?

The generated pages works on Mac OS, both on IE and Safari.

Excel on Mac OS is not supported. We have customers who use Windows Excel inside an emulator. We have no immediate plans to support Mac OS.

VBA and macros

Does SpreadsheetConverter support macros, VBA, or custom functions?

SpreadsheetConverter does not support macros and VBA. Custom functions are supported. Please contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information.

Multi-sheet spreadsheets

Will SpreadsheetConverter convert all sheets in a multiple sheet workbook?

SpreadsheetConverter always converts all sheets and include all necessary parts into the web page.

However, you do not need to show all sheets to the user. You can select to show the selected sheet, the selected sheets or all sheets.

I would like to put all of the worksheets in a workbook onto tabs, just as it appears in Excel

You will get tabs if you choose to show more than one worksheet.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support references to other workbooks?

SpreadsheetConverter supports references between worksheets within a workbook, but not off-book references.

Does your product convert Excel files with multiple (linked) sheets inside? -- also including formulas, etc?

It converts the whole workbook including all worksheets and links between worksheets.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support conversion of spreadsheets where the main worksheet refers to data in other worksheets?

Yes, all relevant formulas and tables will be used, regardless on which workssheet they are.

I want people to see the second and 17th sheet (which is not the last) of the workbook. Is this possible?

Yes.

Naming of cells and fields

I try to name a cell Z210 but the name doesn't stick.

I am sorry, Z210 is not a legal name since Excel thinks it is column Z row 210. You can use Z210x.

Can I change the label names on the HTML form without corrupting the calculating formula?

You cannot change the id or name directly on the web page. They are used in the calculation part. But there is a solution:

If you name the cells in Excel using Insert-Name-Define, and these names start with a letter, and only contains letters, digits and _, then these names will be used in the form.

Can I name ranges of cells?

Yes, but SpreadsheetConverter will not use them in the email with the submitted data. You have to name each individual cells.

I need to name the cells with item id. Is there a quick way of doing that?

This little macro will name the cell according to its contents.

A simple use is to fill the input cells with the article number (with an additional leading letter), mark the range, and run the function.

'make a name out of each text in the cell and remove the cell
'illegal chars are replaced by underscore
Sub MakeNamesFromSelection()
     Dim theCell As Range
     For Each theCell In Selection
         Dim sValue As String
         sValue = theCell.Value2
         sValue = Replace(sValue, "-", "_") 'todo: many more!
         sValue = Replace(sValue, "/", "_") 'todo: many more!
         If sValue <> "" Then
         ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add Name:=sValue, RefersToR1C1:=theCell
         End If
         theCell.Clear
     Next
End Sub

Replace requires Excel 2000 or later.

Is there any way I can control the Name attribute of an input field?

Name the cells in Excel using the little box up to the left.

The name must start with a letter. The rest can be letter, digit and _.

These names will be used as id.

Offline

How can I distribute my web pages?

Best is to zip them before emailing them.

Can I convert the HTML pages to a executable?

Yes, use an HTML to EXE converter.

There are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion which also works very well.

Ordering of software, payments

Can I get a full version of SpreadsheetConverter?

You can download a free evaluation version of SpreadsheetConverter to try it out. This is a size-limited demo that you can use to evaluate all of SpreadsheetConverter's features and performance.

If you need to test a full spreadsheet, you can send us the spreadsheet and we will convert it for you. We can also send you a trial key that removes the size restrictions of the free trial.

What support does SpreadsheetConverter come with?

SpreadsheetConverter comes with 6 month of free e-mail support from our tech support.

What can Java/JSP or ASP & ASP.NET handle that the HTML version can't? I may want to upgrade.

They essentially do the same as the HTML-version, but do the calculation on the server instead of in the client. The most common reasons to use the ASP or JSP-solutions are:

1. I want to keep my formulas totally secret. The server versions does all the calculation on the server. 2. The recalculation is too slow. The server is faster than JavaScript in the browser 3. I am a developer of ASP or JSP-pages, and I use SpreadsheetConverter to create the initial pages. I then add database-connectivity etc... 4. I am a Java-developer and have created a normal Java-program, and I need to do some calculations in that program, for example mortgage calculations.

You can upgrade your SpreadsheetConverter for HTML license to either SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET or SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP. Contact sales for more information about upgrade options.

There is the standard 30 days full refund on the upgrade. Just send me an email, and you will get your money back.

If you want both versions, please contact sales.

If I want SpreadsheetConverter for Java and SpreadsheetConverter for HTML, do I have to pay two separate licenses?

SpreadsheetConverter for HTML is part of SpreadsheetConverter for Java. If you select "Pure HTML" in the Java-version, it is actually SpreadsheetConverter for HTML you are running.

Is there an US-based reseller?

We let REGNOW handle our ordering:

RegNow/Digital River 9625 West 76th Street Eden Prairie, MN 55344 United States of America

Purchase using this link:

https://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?items=9059-1,9059-2,9059-3

For small orders, we only support credit cards and Paypal.

Order over $500 can also be billed directly from us and paid using bank transfer (IBAN).

If you want the 30 day full refund, you need to use a credit card or PayPal.

I do not want to order using a creditcard.

There are other payment options, however both REGNOW and SWREG charge extra for these. Also, the 30 day money back guarantee only applies if you use a creditcard.

If I need to rebuild my developing station, how can I recover a license to reinstall your product ?

If you lost your license code, contact us and we will resend the license code.

Could you tell me the difference between: SpreadsheetConverter to HTML, SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP, and SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET

The HTML version is included in the other versions. Unless you know how to program Java or ASP, you should only buy the Java or ASP versions if you need to keep your formulas totally secure. An experienced programmer can reconstruct your formulas if you use the HTML-version.

I recommend that you start with the HTML-version. You can later upgrade and only pay the difference.

I just ordered SpreadsheetConverter. When should I expect to receive the program?

The only thing you get is the license key. You download the program from

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm

install it, and enter the license key in the first page of the wizard.

You should have got the license key with the configrmation email. Please contact sales if you haven't gotten the key within a few hours.

Other programs

I don’t have Excel, can I use another spreadsheet like Microsoft Works or Gnumeric?

No, only Microsoft Excel 97, Microsoft Excel 2000 and Microsoft Excel XP on Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003 and Excel 2007 are supported for creating the web pages. The web pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter can of course be used on many more platforms.

If you use Excel 97 and/or Windows 98 or ME, you need to use SpreadsheetConverter version 2.

Is Microsoft Excel on Macintosh supported?

We currently do not support Macintosh Excel for creating web pages, but of course Mac users can use the resulting web pages.

We regularly test on Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox for Mac.

When I try to publish my calclulators to Yahoo! SiteBuilder it rejects the file.

It seems that Yahoo Sitebuilder doesn't allow arbitrary HTML-files.

Workaround: publish the SpreadsheetConverter generated web page to another site and link to it from Yahoo! SiteBuilder.

Eudora on Macintosh doesn't show the HTML-email from the advanced service.

You have to use another email program, for example Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail.

I want to convert my spreadsheet to HTML and then somehow copy and paste to the PowerPoint. I would like to use some of my models in the PowerPoint presentation

Just insert-web page will not work.

I found this on the internet:

http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00143.htm

http://www.mvps.org/skp/liveweb.htm

Does your software work with the Lotus format?

SpreadsheetConverter needs MS Excel. You will have to open the Lotus documents using Excel and convert then convert them.

I am looking for a program like yours except one that compiles spreadsheets into an application. Years ago there was a product called Visual Baler that compiled Lotus 123 spreadsheet into an exe file. The company has since gone bankrupt after attempting to create a windows version. Do you plan to do something like this is in the future?

We are looking into that. Since web-based and standard applications more and more being built with similar technology. We will probably be able to help you in the future.

A simple solution is to use an HTML to EXE converter, for example there are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion.

Can I convert the HTML pages to a executable?

Yes, use an HTML to EXE converter.

There are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion which also works very well.

Performance

What a typical download time for a web page created using SpreadsheetConverter?

We have put a lot of effort into making sure that the web pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter are small in size, perform fast calculations, and use as little memory as possible. This provides the end-users with quick download times and good interactivity. A web page, created from a spreadsheet with 5-10 input cells and 5-10 calculated values, will be between 8-20 Kb in size and will be downloaded by a modem user within a few seconds. For a user with a broadband connection, the same web page will be downloaded instantly.

That means that within seconds, the end-user sitting at his browser can start using your spreadsheet calculations.

How fast is recalculation in SpreadsheetConverter?

Our investigations show that typically you can have up to 200 input cells and 200 calculated values, and the recalculation will be instant. That means that it isn’t the recalculation that is the bottleneck, but instead how to present all of this information to the end-user in a single web page.

200 + 200 is of course an average value, it depends on the complexity of the formulas and the built-in functions that are used. Also, rendering speed (the time it takes to draw an HTML-page in the browser window) and the speed of JavaScript differs a lot between different browsers.

(These timings were done 2002)

How can I improve recalculation speed?

The solution is to reduce the number of calculated values shown on the web page.

Very often 80% of the time is spent updating the values the user sees on the web page, and only 20% is spent on the actual calculations. By hiding large parts of the spreadsheet, these values will not be visible on the web page and no time is wasted on updating them. Even if you hide cells, the calculations in them will be used if they are needed for the values visible on the web page.

Why does SpreadsheetConverter recalculate as soon as I press tab?

Since recalculations are almost instant, we would like to give as much feedback to the end-user as possible.

Version 2: If you do not want automatic recalculation, just remove “checked” from the checkbox called ‘automatic_recalc’ in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard.

Version 3 and 4: Set Automatic Recalculation to disable in the wizard.

Is SpreadsheetConverter scalable? Our site has hundreds of simultaneous visitors?

SpreadsheetConverter is as scalable as any static HTML-page. That means that if your current web server can support hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users, SpreadsheetConverter will also be as scalable. SpreadsheetConverter does all calculations on the client, the server is not involved. Once the web page is downloaded, the server is not needed. A web page created with SpreadsheetConverter is typically only 15-25 Kbytes, i.e. the same size of any HTML-page.

Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component?

No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers.

There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support full row/column syntax such as A:A or 8:8?

Yes, but is not recommended. Internal arrays will get unnecessary large and the conversion takes longer time.

How big spreadsheet can SpreadsheetConverter convert?

We do not recommend more than 40,000 active cells. After that the generated code gets rather large and slow.

How can I speed up recalculation?

A few tips: LOOKUP-operations should always work with ordered search

Make the ranges as small as possible, A1:A100 is better then A1:A1000, and A:A is worst

Make your lookup ranges only contain numbers if possible, use #N/A or 0 for error entries, not strings like 'Error'

Have as few in and out-fields as possible. The fields takes long time to update

Speed differs a lot between browsers, IE6 is the fastest and IE4 and NS4 are the slowest.

We are optimizing the code generated in the next versions, so one alternative is to start with ASP, and retest the speed again in a few months and maybe switch to HTML.

How do I enable compression on Apache?

By enabling compression, the amount of data you download will be 1/10. All modern browser support compression.

http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/index.htm

Why is ordered lookup much faster?

When you have the range ordered, looking through 800 rows only requires 10 comparations (since 210 = 1024 which is larger than 800). The technique used is called binary search.

If you do sequential search, you have to make 400 comparations in average (800/2=400).

Thus, for larger tables, ordered lookup will be 100 times faster.

Are server-based calculations like ASP.NET or Java faster than client-based calculations like HTML or Flash?

Server-based calculations used to be faster, however since 2010, modern browsers like Firefox 3, Google Chrome, Apple Safari are as fast.

Older browsers like IE7 and IE8 are much slower in processing JavaScript, however, with IE9, Microsoft has at last delivered a competitive browser. IE9 will be released spring-2011.

If you know your users are using a modern browser, you can select "Automatic recalculation" in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard to do a recalculation after each field.

It takes long time to download and show my web page?

If the loading is the slow part, there is not much SpreadsheetConverter can do before the page is loaded. You however can configure your webserver to compress the data, this is both supported by IIS and Apache and by all modern browsers. It will reduce the amount of data sent to one 5th. (I do not understand why this isn't the standard, since it is automatically disabled when the browser is old. And network is much more important and expensive than a cpu-cycle. The compression method is either deflate or gzip.)

How can I improve conversion speed and recalculation speed?

We say that the limit is about 10000-40000 cells for the Pro Ed.

However, as some have noticed, it works for even larger workbooks. However, the conversion takes time and the pages get very big.

The most important thing you can do if you convert very large workbooks it to make sure that you do not mix numbers and text in calculations. There are 2 common sources:

1. Do not include the header in the ranges used by lookup-operations like VLOOKUP. Since the header is text, but often the values are numbers. So if the date in the table starts on row 2, and row 1 is the header, refer to A2:B200.

2. do not have formulas like =IF(A1=0,"",A1*10). Just have A1*10 or =IF(A1=0,0,A1*10) [Often I just replace "" by 0 in all cells.]

3. Always make lookup ranges as small as possible. Do not use A:A, use A2:A200. Do not include blank lines in lookup ranges. If you have big vlookups, make sure that the data is ordered. Then, lookup will go much faster.

4. Reduce the size of the user interface, ask the user less, show the user less. Show as few worksheets as possible, showing a value takes much more resources than just calculting it as an intermediate value.

5. For each sheet, press Ctrl- End, hide columns ABOVE and to the LEFT of this position that you do not want the user to see. Do not hide all the way down to IV65536 (or XFD1048576)

6. Instead of deep nested IF, use VLOOKUP or similar

Step 1-4 above also affects recalculation speed.

PHP

Is there a way to send the results from submit to a PHP MySQL Table?

SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard webform. When the user presses submit, the data is posted to a web page of your choice.

You will have to create a simple PHP-page that parse the parameters and creates an sql-insert statement and runs it towards your database.

This type of code is very simple and part of standard PHP-books.

For example see

http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php/6

and how to store into a mySQL database, see here

http://www.timestretch.com/php_intro/?page=php_intro

How do I pre-populate input fields with data retrieved from a database?

There are several solution. For example, you can send them over an URL with the syntax http://www.foo.com/calc.htm?bar=56 will set the field call bar to 56. You name cells in Excel.

This assumes that you are prefilling an input cell. Here is a better solution that can be used to set any value.

If you know ASP, the simplest solution is to take the HTML page, make it into a ASP-page over replace statements like

p1A1 = 1234

with

p1A1 = <%= reference to variable which contains the value for cell A1 on sheet 1 %>

where 1234 is the default value that you set in Excel and which you want to read from the database instead.

This solution also works for PHP.

If you want to set constants, see <a href="http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/in itialize-values-on-server/Default.htm">How to initialize values on the server</a>

I want PHP to save the resulting order configuration to MySQL using PHP.

If you name the input cells and calculated cells in Excel, then these names will be used in the web form.

I use PHP to receive the submitted data, but it cannot handle Unicode UTF-8.

After reading

http://us2.php.net/mbstring

it seems that if you want PHP to handle UTF-8, some work is required.

An alternative is to let SpreadsheetConverter generate an UTF-8 file and then convert it into a suitable encoding. You find iconv.exe in the directory where SpreadsheetConverter is installed.

iconv.exe -t windows-1252 -f utf-8 old.htm > new.htm

and then change

the row <meta content="text/html;charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">

to <meta content="text/html;charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type">

How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically?

If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following:

How to initialize values on the server

Pictures, images, clip-art

I want to convert the flyers I created in Excel. They have photos in them. Will your program support photos?

Yes, photos, images, clip-art and pictures are handled.

My image or clipart has a grey background.

When you insert a clipart, you might get a grey background.

Solution: 1. Right-click on the image and select Format picture 2. Select Colors and Lines tab 3. Change Fill-color to Automatic (or you background color) from 'No fill'

Presale questions

What is the difference between SpreadsheetConverter and Excel's "save as HTML"?

Can all spreadsheets be converted into a web page?

No. Our experience is that 90% of the spreadsheets can be converted without any changes. More than 95% of the spreadsheets using supported functions can be converted after only minor changes.

Will SpreadsheetConverter convert all sheets in a multiple sheet workbook?

SpreadsheetConverter always converts all sheets and include all necessary parts into the web page.

However, you do not need to show all sheets to the user. You can select to show the selected sheet, the selected sheets or all sheets.

Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component?

No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers.

There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page.

What level of expertise is required to use SpreadsheetConverter?

If you are familiar with basic software such as MS Word and Excel then you have the required skill set.

What are my gains if I'm a seasoned professional?

With SpreadsheetConverter you have the ability to create applications with incredible speed. And you can still add your personal touch by editing the generate web pages.

Basically your application will recalculate fields on the screen? Is this correct?

Yes.

What can Java/JSP or ASP & ASP.NET handle that the HTML version can't? I may want to upgrade.

They essentially do the same as the HTML-version, but do the calculation on the server instead of in the client. The most common reasons to use the ASP or JSP-solutions are:

There is the standard 30 days full refund on the upgrade. Just send me an email, and you will get your money back.

If you want both versions, please contact sales.

I'm looking for a browser-based application that can upload an excel file and populate an html table that is online. Can SpreadsheetConverter do this?

No.

If the web page is static, auto-republishing in MS Excel might work for you.

I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web.

SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution:

It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc.

You can read more at

http://www.spreadsheetserver.com

We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support conversion of spreadsheets where the main worksheet refers to data in other worksheets?

Yes, all relevant formulas and tables will be used, regardless on which workssheet they are.

I am interested in your product but need to know what your product does better than Excel's own "save as web page" built-in utility.

Save as web page in Excel can be done in two different ways: 1. static page 2. interactive page

When you save as static page, only the current contents of the cells are used, and you cannot change any values and by that trigger any recalculations.

Is the converted html document able to be edited in FrontPage?

Yes.

How do I protect certain cells so that entries cannot be made to them?

The user can only edit input cells. All other cells and formulas are automatically protected on the web page.

Does SpreadsheetConverter support lookup-functions?

Yes.

Where does the calculation take place?

The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server.

Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version.

Could you tell me the difference between: SpreadsheetConverter to HTML, SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP, and SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET

I recommend that you start with the HTML-version. You can later upgrade and only pay the difference.

Can the client access these converted calculators without the need to be on-line?

Yes, the web page is self-contained and can be run from the harddisk or the CD.

It is our intention to make the spreadsheet a chargeable product and therefore we want to protect the work by disableing the ability to save to a local machine.

Use the ASP or JSP-solution.

Does the SpreadsheetConverter support hidden rows? There are many rows used for internal calculation steps, containing data that should not be seen by the user.

The rows will be hidden on the web page. If the contents is referenced by formulas, they will be part of the resulting web page (not visible for the user).

Columns and sheets can be hidden too.

Can we use this on our Linux website?

Does the user have to have Excel on their pc?

No.

Can SpreadsheetConverter be used to convert an Excel spreadsheet and place it in a blog, i.e. WordPress, Blogger or TypePad? Can your calculators and forms be used also with Content Management Systems like the Drupal or Joomla CMS?

Some content management systems can only import "dumb" objects like images, but not scripted objects like our calculators. We have documented the best procedure for each tool.

In most cases you can also upload the calculator to another web server and use it in your CMS or blog with an iframe or an iframe plug-in.

Printing

The web page is a little wider than the Excel page

The width of the tables created by SpreadsheetConverter are only approximate. Browsers will do some reformatting when it shows the page.

In Excel one of my spreadsheets fits onto A4 height, but when I convert with either HTML or ASP, the converted sheet is longer than A4. This is a problem because I want users to be able to print out one of the sheets.

Unless you set layout=fixed, the rows will be higher on the web page than in Excel.

However layout=fixed will make the web pages look cramped, it is better to let the web pages become higher.

When I print, the cell colors are missing.

It is a web browser issue. Some browser print the background color, some don't. For some versions, it is a setting that enables background color printing.

The reason for this is to reduce the amount of ink spent when printing.

Is there any code I can add to force the print button to print this page in landscape mode?

No, there is no way for a webpage to make it print in landscape mode.

In the future, there might be, at least this is a suggestion in future HTML-standards (CSS3), but current browser up to IE7 do not support it.

When printed, the web page is printed in half size.

The problem is that you have white invisible colums to the right, and this together with "shrink-to-fit" when printing, gives this result.

Solution:

Open the worksheet, press Ctrl-End and see in which colunm you end up.

Assuming you end up in column Z, but you only want the user to see column A to H, select column H to Z and hide these.

Background colors and images don't print in IE 8

When you select the option to print background colors and images in IE 8, in Tools | Internet Options | Advanced tab, you might find that the background colors and images still don't print when you send the page to your printer, because the setting isn't adjusted in the Page Setup options. There is a workaround that you can use to ensure that the setting is correct. You'll find it in KB article 974128 at

http://www.win7news.net/2VVFPU/110429-Print-Background-Color s

Recalculation

Why does SpreadsheetConverter recalculate as soon as I press tab?

Since recalculations are almost instant, we would like to give as much feedback to the end-user as possible.

Version 2: If you do not want automatic recalculation, just remove “checked” from the checkbox called ‘automatic_recalc’ in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard.

Version 3 and 4: Set Automatic Recalculation to disable in the wizard.

References to other sheets and workbooks

Does SpreadsheetConverter support references to other workbooks?

SpreadsheetConverter supports references between worksheets within a workbook, but not off-book references.

How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically?

If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following:

How to initialize values on the server

My workbook contains links to other web page, for example elememts.htm, after conversion, they do not work

SpreadsheetConverter always generates a folder where all the files for a specific spreadsheet is stored.

You have to edit the generated page. Depending on where you place the element.htm, replace elements.htm by ../elements.htm

Requirements

Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component?

No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers.

There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page.

I don't have the ability to run programs on the server. It is owned by someone else.

You can use SpreadsheetConverter for HTML. It is just a plain web page, and it doesn't get smart until it is shown in a browser.

Does the version 3 and later versions support Windows 98 or Windows ME?

No, version 3 will not suppport Win98 and ME. If you need to use Win98, you will have to continue to use version 2. You find version 2 at the bottom of the download page.

Version 4 requires Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista or later. Also, Windows Server versions are also supported by version 4.

Does the version 3 support Excel 95 or Excel 97?

No, version 3 will not suppport Excel 95 or 97. If you need to use Excel 97, you will have to continue to use version 2.

Save

Can I save the web page as an Excel workbook?

No, there is no direct saving functionality in the resulting web page.

However, since all of the fields are contained within a HTML-form, you can submit the form to a web server and store all of the field values in a file on the web server.

If you do not want to build this solution yourself, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML has built-in submit support, called the Advanced Service.

Another alternative is to use a web server enabled with the FrontPage server extensions, all fields will be stored into a tab-separated file on the server.

Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to persist state?

Not out of the box. Since SpreadsheetConverter is run inside the browser it is forbidden to store any data on the user's harddisk.

You can persist the data by handling it on your web server using ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP.

I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web.

SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution:

It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc.

You can read more at

http://www.spreadsheetserver.com

We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009.

I want PHP to save the resulting order configuration to MySQL using PHP.

If you name the input cells and calculated cells in Excel, then these names will be used in the web form.

Can I use SpreadsheetConverter as a database?

SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data. If you wish to create a form - where data is entered and where additional data can be entered during a subsequent visit, picking up where you left off last time - you need an online database.

The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save forms created from spreadsheets using any browser. You can share the form online and your users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a database. The data can be auto-filtered online, just as in Excel. All data including formulas can be downloaded into Excel. Advanced authentification decides what data a user is allowed to see, edit and download.

It is intended for online databases and applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc.

We are currently not selling SpreadsheetServer but a new version will be released for sale in 2009.

More information, demos, pricing etc at

http://www.spreadsheetserver.com

Scalablility

Is SpreadsheetConverter scalable? Our site has hundreds of simultaneous visitors?

Protect content

How secure is SpreadsheetConverter for HTML, can anyone see my formulas?

Since the formulas are converted into JavaScript and the JavaScript formulas are in plain text on the web page, anyone who selects ‘View Source’ in the browser can see the resulting JavaScript. In a couple of hours, a person knowledgeable in JavaScript will be able to reverse-engineer the original spreadsheet.

Therefore, if you need to keep the formulas secret, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML is not for you.

The products SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP and SpreadsheetConverter for ASP&ASP.NET solves this problem, since the formulas will never leave the web server.

Microsoft has a solution that only works for Internet Explorer called Script Encoder. The solution is not totally secure, but makes reverse engineering much more difficult. It is a simple command-line tool that enables script designers to encode their final script so that Web hosts and Web clients cannot view or modify their source. More information about the Script Encoder can be found here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/e n-us/script56/html/SeconScriptEncoderOverview.asp

There are also other solutions out there, for example WebLockPro.com, which claims to encrypt the web page. Here you can read how to circumvent some of them:

http://www.vortex-webdesign.com/help/hidesource.htm

However, do not believe that your Excel spreadsheet is secure. There are a lot of hacks out there that removes the protection and passwords.

Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to change cell formulas at runtime?

No, SpreadsheetConverter protects formulas from change.

How can I secure my SpreadsheetConverter calculator?

Place it on an HTTPS:-site and password protect it. How to password protect depends on which type of webserver you are using.

I do not want someone to have the ability to copy my program/code and post my intellectual property on another website.

Then you should use the ASP or JSP-solution. The formulas will never leave the web server.

Is it possible to have the web page password protected?

Password protection is handled by the web server.

For example if you use a Microsoft web server, you will create a separate directory for all password protected files. Then configure this directory to use passwords.

How do I protect certain cells so that entries cannot be made to them?

The user can only edit input cells. All other cells and formulas are automatically protected on the web page.

It is our intention to make the spreadsheet a chargeable product and therefore we want to protect the work by disableing the ability to save to a local machine.

Use the ASP or JSP-solution.

I want users to be able to modify only certain ranges within a sheet. I can do this in Excel under Tools / Protection / Allow users to edit ranges. Will your application support this type of protection?

The user will never be able to edit the formulas on the web page, so this protection is always there.

How make users login before using my calculator?

If you use IIS, you can create normal Windows users and deny guest access to your web server.

Is the JavaScript encrypted?

No, we only have removed the new lines. If you want to make it easier to view the source, all you need to do is replace ";" by ";" followed by a new line.

I have IIS web server and ASP.NET has authentification. Can I use this to password protect the pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript?

Yes.

Change the extension from .htm to .aspx. Then, you should be able to use ASP.NET authentification system.

Service for handling submit

I requested a receiver code but I did not get an email with the codes.

If you entered the email address correctly - you can try a second time - then most likely AOL has decided that the email with the receiver code is spam and has deleted it.

You have to try another email address.

What if I want a customer to receive a copy of what they submitted? How do I get the submitted data to come to me and them?

This will be part of the advanced service, not is not yet implemented (Oct-2008)

In order to prevent spammers to use your form to send spam to arbitrary email addresses, we have to make sure that there a human who submitted the form.

Before sending the copy to the submitter, he/she will have to enter a security code similar to the code at

https://secure.overture.com/s/dtc/center/?mkt=us

Eudora on Macintosh doesn't show the HTML-email from the advanced service.

You have to use another email program, for example Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail.

Suppose I survey 2000 students. I get 2000 e-mails. Do you have a macro or quick way to get the results back into a spreadsheet?

That functionality is part of our advanced service. The cost is $15/month.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/hosting/advanced-submit- service.htm

An alternative is to configure your own webserver, for example Frontpage extension can collect submitted data into a CSV-file, which easily is opened by Excel.

I have sent some htlm files to a few people. When they open them they are opening them in their email page. How can I make this stop happening?

How do I apply for the advance service?

Request a receiver code and check the advanced service. The receiver code for the free service and the advanced service is the same.

If you decide to continue to use it, and want to enable the full Advanced Service, contact sales@spreadsheetconverter.com

I want to create several forms that use your email submit service and I want to use different email addresses?

There are two solutions:

Request one common receiver code and create a filter in Outlook, Exchange or ... that forwards the email to the correct email address by looking at the subject.

Request one receiver code each and make sure that the correct receiver code is entered in the 'configure submit' dialog when you generate the web page.

Why do I get an email with fields with names lie p2C144?

If you name the cells in Excel, those names will be used instead of p2C144

I want the submits go to another email address.

Request a new receiver code for the new email address and enter it into SpreadsheetConverter wizard.

Regenerate the web page and make sure "Free Service" or "Advanced Service is checked".

Then, publish the updated web page.

I do not get the emails

If you haven't requested a receiver code, you need to do that too and enter it into the wizard.

Regenerate the web page and make sure "Free Service" or "Advanced Service is checked".

Publish the updated web page.

If you still do not get the emails, please check your spam filters. Normally, you have to spam filters, one local in your computer, and one in the email server.

If it still doesn't work, you need to use another email address in a different domain.

How can I download all submitted data into Excel or a database?

If you use our Advanced Service, our server will store all submits and you can download them as a Excel table.

http://tinyurl.com/yjzbyz

with user=demo, password=demo and press "Save as Excel"

You can customize the column headers.

It costs $153/year or $15/month (October - 2008)

How would you go about setting up different Forms with different email addresses for Submit?

Example - Some forms would go top Bob is shipping, another to Sally in accounting and yet another to Harry in IT. Is there a way to change the email addresses locally?

You need to request one receiver code for each email address, and then have that receiver code entered in the wizard when you generate the form.

Share spreadsheet online

I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web.

SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution:

It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc.

You can read more at

http://www.spreadsheetserver.com

We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009.

Submit

Can I save the web page as an Excel workbook?

No, there is no direct saving functionality in the resulting web page.

However, since all of the fields are contained within a HTML-form, you can submit the form to a web server and store all of the field values in a file on the web server.

If you do not want to build this solution yourself, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML has built-in submit support, called the Advanced Service.

Another alternative is to use a web server enabled with the FrontPage server extensions, all fields will be stored into a tab-separated file on the server.

I do not want to use FrontPage server extension, any alternatives?

You can use our free or advanced service.

If your web server supports Perl, formmail.pl is an alternative. See http://www.formmail.com/

If you use a Windows server, look at formmail.asp

http://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp

or if you prefer ASP.NET

http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Formmail_in_ASP .NET

If you use PHP, here are some

http://www.dtheatre.com/scripts/formmail.php

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/29699.html

For Java, see

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/21178.html

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/6177.html

and "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group

http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip

I requested a receiver code but I did not get an email with the codes.

If you entered the email address correctly - you can try a second time - then most likely AOL has decided that the email with the receiver code is spam and has deleted it.

You have to try another email address.

How do I create a submit form so that the form information goes to an email?

You can read about our submit support here

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/excel_form_submit_email. htm

Then, you create a form using Excel, start SpreadsheetConverter and select 'Submit'-button under 'Configure toolbar'.

The first time you add a submit button, you will have to request a receiver code, so that we know where to send the email.

The relevant section in the manual is found here:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/SpreadsheetConver ter%20Users%20Guide.htm#dialog_toolbar

Why do I get an email with fields with names lie p2C144?

If you name the cells in Excel, those names will be used instead of p2C144

Is there any way I can control the Name attribute of an input field?

Name the cells in Excel using the little box up to the left.

The name must start with a letter. The rest can be letter, digit and _.

These names will be used as id.

How can I collect the submitted data using Java?

SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard HTML-form.

You loop over the request parameters, either by looping over the parameters, or by using getParameter.

Use getParameter method to get form element values

For example, if you named cell A1 "firstname", you can access the first name using the formula

request.getParameter("firstname")

---

Reading data using a servlet

http://www.nakov.com/inetjava/lectures/part-3-webapps/InetJa va-3.3-HTML-Forms-and-Parameters.html

http://www.spreadsheet-converter.com:8080/servlets-examples/

http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=1297854

and from the book "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group

http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip

---

Or directly inside a JSP-page. The advantage of using a JSP-page is that all you need is to copy the file to the server. Servlets may require changing a configuration file.

<%@page import="java.util.*" %>
<%
	String username, password;
	if(request.getParameter("firstname") == null)
		username = "";
	else
		username = request.getParameter("firstname");
	
%>

The email with submitted data names the fields like p1A3, p1D3, p1E3

The email looks like this:

p1A3: 5 p1D3: 9,50 p1E3: 47,50

If you name the individual cells in Excel, these names will be used as names. Note that they must start with a letter, and only contain letters, digits and "_".

Also note that the Advanced Service sends you a snapshot of the whole form as it looked to the user.

How can I download all submitted data into Excel or a database?

If you use our Advanced Service, our server will store all submits and you can download them as a Excel table.

http://tinyurl.com/yjzbyz

with user=demo, password=demo and press "Save as Excel"

You can customize the column headers.

It costs $153/year or $15/month (October - 2008)

I want the form to be emailed to different persons depending on the value of a dropdown list.

The email is always mailed to the same address, at least if you use our Advanced or Free Service.

A workaround is to mail it to the same email address, and then have a filter in the email server that looks for a value and forwards the email to the right person.

Exchange and Outlook supports filters like this.

I will need to have the submissions sent to another email address, what do I do?

Request a new receiver code for the new email address, enter it into the wizard and regenerate the web page, and then publish the new page.

How can the submitted data be emailed to me?

You have have to do the following steps:

1. Open your spreadsheet 2. Select Convert 3. Step through the wizard. 3. Press 'Configure toolbar and submit' 4. Select 'Add submit button' 5. Press 'Configure submit' 6. Press 'Request free receiver code' and enter your email address 7. Wait for the email 8. In the dialog that is still open, select 'I want to use the SpreadsheetConverter web site, here is my receiver code' 9. Enter the receiver code into the field below 8. 10. Select 'Free' or 'Advanced' 11. Press 'Ok' 12. Press 'Ok' 13. Press 'Next' and .... and 'Finish' to start the conversion. 14. Once Internet Explorer is opened, you can test, enter some values and press 'Submit' 15. Your first email arrives.

Can the submit buttom be configured to send an auto response to the person submitting the form as well as to me?

No, not directly.

However, if you named the cell in Excel where the user enters his email address "email", you can set up an auto-responder on your own email address.

How would you go about setting up different Forms with different email addresses for Submit?

Example - Some forms would go top Bob is shipping, another to Sally in accounting and yet another to Harry in IT. Is there a way to change the email addresses locally?

You need to request one receiver code for each email address, and then have that receiver code entered in the wizard when you generate the form.

I would like my spreadsheet web page to simply close when the user clicks on the Submit button.

The solution is to the success url to a window that close itself, for example see discussion at

http://forums.devshed.com/javascript-development-115/javascr ipt-close-problem-23554.html

Create a page that only contains

and place that on your server and call it close-window.htm . Then set the success url to http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/close-window.htm

Where can I change the e-mail of the Advanced Service to where the forms are send to?

The Advanced Service consists of two parts

1. The email looks like the web page

2. The fields are stored in a database for later retrival.

You get 1. by selecting Advanced Service in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard

You get 2. by using a recevier code for an email address that is known to SpreadsheetServer.

I do not get the submits from the Free or Advanced Submit Service anymore, why?

Most likely, the emails are blocked by your spam filter. Note that you have at least two spam filters; one in your local email program, and one in the email server. Tell the guys who manage the email server to make sure that emails from @spreadsheet-converter.com (with an extra dash) are not blocked.

If this doesn't help, request a new receiver code for an email address on another domain, regenerate the web form with this new receiver code, and then upload the new page.

To be 100% sure no submits are lost, you should use the Advanced Submit Service since all the submits are saved into our database. Thus, you can always retrieve them later. In order to make this work, the email address you used for creating the receiver code must have an account in the Advanced Submit Service.

Yahoo Mail suggest that you set up a filter in Yahoo! Mail to ensure that they get your email messages in their Inbox. Yahoo! Mail users may find more information regarding filters at this page:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/mail/manage/manage-06.html

Support

What support does SpreadsheetConverter come with?

SpreadsheetConverter comes with 6 month of free e-mail support from our tech support.

How do I update my installation?

Download the last version from our website and install it.

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm

Trial, Free trial

Can I get a full version of SpreadsheetConverter?

You can download a free evaluation version of SpreadsheetConverter to try it out. This is a size-limited demo that you can use to evaluate all of SpreadsheetConverter's features and performance.

If you need to test a full spreadsheet, you can send us the spreadsheet and we will convert it for you. We can also send you a trial key that removes the size restrictions of the free trial.

Upload and publishing to website

I need to publish the web page on our corporate web page, is this difficult?

Since the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter is totally self-contained this is easy to do. Precisely how you achieve this will depend on how your web site is set up.

If you work for a large company, you are probably using some kind of content management system (CMS). Such systems have a way of importing a finished HTML-documents. You can treat the page generated by SpreadsheetConverter just as any HTML-page. Then the CMS will handle adding the banners etc...

If the web site isn't managed by a CMS, then whoever is responsible for the web site is probably using some kind of web authoring tool, such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. These tools will add the company banners etc to the web page more or less automatically. Talk to them, and tell them to take the initial part of the generated web page (the part from the first <style> to </head> and copy it into the head of the template, and the part between <body> and </body> and copy it into the body of the template. For more information, see the SpreadsheetConverter manual.

How do I publish an SpreadsheetConverter web page?

You publish it to your ordinary web server where you have your other web pages. You use the same technique as you do for your other web pages, typically ftp, Frontpage extensions or webfolders.

Does the ISP who is hosting my site have to publish the calculator on to the webserver?

No, it is a plain web page.

Is the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter purely on-line/local, no hidden links to any server or whatever on the background?

The HTML-version works on any webserver. You can also save the web page to your local harddisk, and the calculations still works.

I don't have the ability to run programs on the server. It is owned by someone else.

You can use SpreadsheetConverter for HTML. It is just a plain web page, and it doesn't get smart until it is shown in a browser.

How do I upload the web page to my webserver?

If your webserver supports webdav and similar you can open it using http://user:password@www.domain-name.com and the drag the file from your local computer into the newly opened window. IE will copy your file to the webserver.

If you use ftp, instead open the link ftp://user:password@www.domain-name.com and then drop your file into the window.

If you are sitting behind a firewall and use ftp://, then you might have to change two settings of Internet Explorer:

Select Tools-Internet Options

Select Advanced tab

Select 'Enable folder view for ftp sites'

Select 'Use passive ftp'

If still unclear, let me know. You are not the only one having this problem.

Can SpreadsheetConverter be used to convert an Excel spreadsheet and place it in a blog, i.e. WordPress, Blogger or TypePad? Can your calculators and forms be used also with Content Management Systems like the Drupal or Joomla CMS?

Some content management systems can only import "dumb" objects like images, but not scripted objects like our calculators. We have documented the best procedure for each tool.

In most cases you can also upload the calculator to another web server and use it in your CMS or blog with an iframe or an iframe plug-in.

Validate input

I want to limit input to a range. Such as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

How can I verify that the user doesn't enter a value larger than 10?

Place a formula in the cell next to the input cell, font color=red, and let it be like =IF(A1>10,"Max 10 please","") or any other validation.

How can I verify that the user enters an integer?

Set the format of the cell to number with 0 decimals.

How can I make calculated default values?

In Excel you can have a formula and then let the user overwrite it, but that is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter, since formulas can never be changed.

Workaround: You can implement calculated default values using 4 cells like this

B1: FALSE

B2: <formula for calculting default>

B3: 0

B4: =IF(B1,B2,B3)

If the checkbox is unset, the users defined value will be used, otherwise the calculated.

Test here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.htm

and spreadsheet here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.xls

VBA

Does SpreadsheetConverter support macros, VBA, or custom functions?

SpreadsheetConverter does not support macros and VBA. Custom functions are supported. Please contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information.

Microsoft Visual Studio

When I import the ASP.NET page into Visual Studio 2003, it complains about SRC=.

You have to delete the SRC-attribute. Visual Studio 2003 uses CodeBehind instead.

You find a tutorial here:

http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/as pnet/save-asp-net-to-database-14.pdf

A little article describing the difference between Src and CodeBehind:

http://www.dotnetcoders.com/web/Articles/ShowArticle.aspx?ar ticle=22

Visual Studio is too expensive, any alternatives?

If you do not want to purchase VS, there are free alternatives.

Microsoft® Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express provides you with everything you need to start building standards-friendly Web applications

http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/

How can I store the form values in a database?

You want to store the values from your ASP.NET form into a database and repopopulate the form when the user returns back.

Connecting an ASP.NET form created with SpreadsheetConverter to a database is very easy if you know some programming and Visual Studio.

Web design

I would like to add a SpreadsheetConverter web page to my web. I use FrontPage.

Select File-Import and press Add File. Select the file generated by SpreadsheetConverter.
Open the newly inserted page. Note that it contains no navigational bars.
Select Format-Theme and select the default theme.
Select Format-Shared Borders and apply to the selected page.
Select View-Navigation and using drag-and-drop move the inserted page to the location where you want it.
Right-click on the page that you just moved and make sure that ’Included in Navigation bar’ is selected.

Now, your page should appear like the other pages in your web site and the navigation structure should include the new page.

How do I change the look-and-feel of the page?

You can also open up the page in FrontPage or Dreamweaver and change the layout and look-and-feel. All calculations will continue to work as normal.

I would like to be able to select values from a dropdown-list (select)

Lists created using Data-Validation-List in Excel will automatically be presented as dropdown-lists.

I would like to be able to have a checkbox

All input cells that contain TRUE/FALSE (or any localized version of it like WAHR in Germany), will automatically be presented as checkboxes.

I want to limit input to a range. Such as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10

I would like to put all of the worksheets in a workbook onto tabs, just as it appears in Excel

You will get tabs if you choose to show more than one worksheet.

The web page is a little wider than the Excel page

The width of the tables created by SpreadsheetConverter are only approximate. Browsers will do some reformatting when it shows the page.

I want to make the calculator part of an existing web page?

If you ever need to insert a spreadsheet on an existing page in your web, just follow the steps below.

Create the spreadsheet in Excel.
Convert the spreadsheet to a web page using SpreadsheetConverter.
Open the resulting web page in your html editor.
Using your html editor, also open the existing page where the spreadsheet is to be inserted.
In the <head> … </head> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with  and ending with  and copy it (including the leading and trailing comment) to the end of the <head> … </head> section of the existing page.
In the <body> … </body> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with  and ending with  and copy it to where you want the spreadsheet to appear in the <body> … </body> section of the existing page.
(optional) Copy the onload-event from <body into your <body-tag. Typically the onload-event looks like this:
<body onload="initial_update();document.formc.pA1A.focus();">
It initializes the form and places the cursor at the first field.

Can we specify the output HTML page in terms of cell and text sizes and colors so it matches our website format? Or are we restricted to the formatting options that are available in Excel?

The generated web page will look like your Excel sheet with colors, borders, sizes etc. This is a standard web page, so you can open it and change the layout, color etc using a tool like Dreamweaver.

I noticed the one that calculates the distance between two cities. Yet, the database information was not shown on the resulting web page.

You can decide what to show to the user. The rest is hidden in JavaScript.

I am trying to convert a sheet which has a lookup table on it, but I do not wish the lookup table to appear in the final web page.

SpreadsheetConverter will automatically hide lookup tables, so you can place them on the same sheet.

Is there a trick to get a page to start in an empty/non-input field?

Set focus needs the name of field where focus should be changed. If you name the cell in excel to 'mystart', you can use that name there.

The <body part has a onload-attribute where setFocus is called. You can change that to another field.

So instead of

document.formc.pA1A.focus();

use

document.formc.mystart.focus();

I want to add a button to link the converted html file to home page in my web

Add the following code to your page

Just change out the "page.html" with the URL of the page you want to click and go to. This faq is only relevant for SpreadsheetConverter v4 or earlier. Version 5 lets you show Excel's hyperlinks as buttons.

When printed, the web page is printed in half size.

The problem is that you have white invisible colums to the right, and this together with "shrink-to-fit" when printing, gives this result.

Solution:

Open the worksheet, press Ctrl-End and see in which colunm you end up.

Assuming you end up in column Z, but you only want the user to see column A to H, select column H to Z and hide these.

Webquery

I would like to fetch some data from other sites or from a web service, how can I do that?

Does SpreadsheetConverter support webqueries?

No, but it is easy to write code in ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP to insert and retrieve data.

How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically?

If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following:

How to initialize values on the server

Webservices

I would like to fetch some data from other sites or from a web service, how can I do that?

How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically?

If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following:

How to initialize values on the server

Website integration

I would like to add a SpreadsheetConverter web page to my web. I use FrontPage.

Select File-Import and press Add File. Select the file generated by SpreadsheetConverter.
Open the newly inserted page. Note that it contains no navigational bars.
Select Format-Theme and select the default theme.
Select Format-Shared Borders and apply to the selected page.
Select View-Navigation and using drag-and-drop move the inserted page to the location where you want it.
Right-click on the page that you just moved and make sure that ’Included in Navigation bar’ is selected.

Now, your page should appear like the other pages in your web site and the navigation structure should include the new page.

My workbook contains links to other web page, for example elememts.htm, after conversion, they do not work

SpreadsheetConverter always generates a folder where all the files for a specific spreadsheet is stored.

You have to edit the generated page. Depending on where you place the element.htm, replace elements.htm by ../elements.htm

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Customer Support 6 month free e-mail support. Click here to contact customer support Lost license key I lost my license key, do I have to purchase a new license? No, contact sales using the email address you used when you purchased, and we will send you the key. Where is the non-trial version? The trial version and the licensed version of SpreadsheetConverter are the same program. By entering the license key, the trial program converts itself into the full version. FAQ Complete FAQ	Advanced Apache web server ASP ASP.NET Backend integration Billing, ordering, refunds Browsers Calculation Run off-line from CD Charts Controls: dropdown, checkbox, ... Database Date & time calculations and I/O Dreamweaver Email Error during conversion Excel Formatting Frontpage Functions General Generate Hosting IIS, Microsoft Information Server Input cells and input fields Installation Integration Internationalization, localization J2ME, Java for mobile phones Java JavaScript Licensing Linux Apple Macintosh and OSX VBA and macros Multi-sheet spreadsheets Naming of cells and fields Offline Ordering of software, payments Other programs Performance PHP Pictures, images, clip-art Presale questions Printing Recalculation References to other sheets and workbooks Requirements Save Scalablility Protect content Service for handling submit Share spreadsheet online Submit Support Trial, Free trial Upload and publishing to website Validate input VBA Microsoft Visual Studio Web design Webquery Webservices Website integration Advanced Can your product be "command line" driven? Is there an API that will allow it to be called from another program? No. Not right know. If you need this, please contact support. Do you have a batch mode? Yes, there is a batch-mode program available that is targeted for customers that needs to convert hundreds of spreadsheets. Contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information. Why are output fields form parameters? So that you can retrieve them on the server. Can I change the label names on the HTML form without corrupting the calculating formula? You cannot change the id or name directly on the web page. They are used in the calculation part. But there is a solution: If you name the cells in Excel using Insert-Name-Define, and these names start with a letter, and only contains letters, digits and _, then these names will be used in the form. Reference card for JavaScript Look at http://javascript-reference.info/ from Visibone, which has a lot of nice printed reference cards. http://www.visibone.com/ Where can I change the e-mail of the Advanced Service to where the forms are send to? The Advanced Service consists of two parts 1. The email looks like the web page 2. The fields are stored in a database for later retrival. You get 1. by selecting Advanced Service in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard You get 2. by using a recevier code for an email address that is known to SpreadsheetServer. When we set up the Advanced Service account for you, you got one login + password. Create a new user for the second email address whose submits you want to store, request a receiver code for this second email address, enter it into the wizard, convert and publish. Apache web server How do I create a web form that uses a FrontPage server extensions enabled web server? When you create a form to be used by a web server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (for example Microsoft IIS or Apache), follow these steps: Create the Excel spreadsheet. Name the input and output cells in Excel (This step is not mandatory, but makes the result easier to understand). Create the web page using SpreadsheetConverter. Start FrontPage. Load the web page created in step 3 into FrontPage. Put the cursor somewhere in the form near the input fields, right-click, and select 'Form properties'. The minimum you must do is to select 'Send to' and enter the email address. Save the web page. Publish the web page onto your web server. How can I secure my SpreadsheetConverter calculator? Place it on an HTTPS:-site and password protect it. How to password protect depends on which type of webserver you are using. How do I enable compression on Apache? By enabling compression, the amount of data you download will be 1/10. All modern browser support compression. http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/index.htm How make users login before using my calculator? If you are using SpreadsheetConverter/ExcelEverywhere to HTML and want your users to login before they can use the calculator, the solution is to use the authentification of the web server to handle this. Both Internet Information Server (IIS) and Apache handles this. If you use IIS, you can create normal Windows users and deny guest access to your web server. If you use Apache, here is an article describing it: Protect Web sites with Apache Server's HTTP authentication system. Alternatively, you can program the authentification yourself. Secure your Web pages with custom authentication Or, you can use ASP.NET's form authentification. A simple solution is to store name + password in web.config. ASP.NET Form Authenticiation tutorial The SpreadsheetServer also handles logins. ASP How do I pre-populate input fields with data retrieved from a database? There are several solution. For example, you can send them over an URL with the syntax http://www.foo.com/calc.htm?bar=56 will set the field call bar to 56. You name cells in Excel. This assumes that you are prefilling an input cell. Here is a better solution that can be used to set any value. If you know ASP, the simplest solution is to take the HTML page, make it into a ASP-page over replace statements like p1A1 = 1234 with p1A1 = <%= reference to variable which contains the value for cell A1 on sheet 1 %> where 1234 is the default value that you set in Excel and which you want to read from the database instead. This solution also works for PHP. If you want to set constants, see <a href="http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/in itialize-values-on-server/Default.htm">How to initialize values on the server</a> I don't seem to be able to view the ASP files once saved. In order to view them, you need a local installation of Microsofts web server Internet Information Server (IIS). IIS is not included in Windows XP Home and has to be installed separately in NT4 and Windows 2000. Here you can read how to install IIS on Windows XP http://www.webwizguide.com/kb/asp_tutorials/installing_iis_w inXP_pro.asp Here you can read how to install IIS on Vista http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-install- iis-on-windows-vista/ and http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732624.aspx Does the ASP-pages work on Sun Java System ASP 4.0 We haven't tested on Sun Java System ASP, so we cannot guarantee that it will work. You can read more about Sun Java System Active Server Pages 4.0 here: http://wwws.sun.com/software/chilisoft/ Where does the calculation take place? The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server. Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version. How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically? If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following: How to initialize values on the server Visual Studio is too expensive, any alternatives? If you do not want to purchase VS, there are free alternatives. Microsoft® Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express provides you with everything you need to start building standards-friendly Web applications http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/ ASP.NET How would I get the ASP.NET-page to update without clicking on the update button? If you want that, the page will be submitted to the server, calculated, returned and redrawn by the browser each time. This will be rather slow. Also, the cursor will not be placed in the correct cell. However, for small web pages it might work. If you use ASP.NET, setting the autopostback-property will do this for you. http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/webcontrols/webforms/libr ary/shared/AutoPostBack.asp There is one complication: You need to add two lines. Add Request("xl_postback") != "1" \|\| to the server side code on top so that the values are read from the form whenever the submit was done by selecting a new value in the listbox. and do a submit in onchange on the <select. onchange="document.formc.xl_postback.value='99'; document.formc.submit();" As you see, we need to set a flag so that the server-side code that this is a recalc request and not a reset request. I used the existing hidden variable xl_postback, since this isn't used in the ASP.NET version. I changed the value from 1 to something else (99). Do you have an example of how to Get and Set values of the getObject() in the VB (or C#) codebehind? The object is a JSObject. If you use C#, the "JSObject" indexer can be used to get and set object properties: Object x = getObject(); Object prop1 = ((JSObject)x)["prop1"]; ((JSObject)x)["prop2"] = 42; You need to include the following namespaces: using Microsoft.JScript; Compile your application against the following assemblies: Microsoft.JScript We will change the code to generate a standard class some time in the future, these JSObjects are not that nice. This is already done in the JSP/Java-version. Most people who use the ASP.NET-version accesses the data from the ASPX-page directly, instead of accessing the object. I installed the DOTNET-framework but ASP.NET still do not work. If you installed IIS after the DOTNET-framework, you get that behaviour. The framework can't configure IIS before it is installed. Solution: Execute the aspnet_regiis.exe in the Framework directory Where does the calculation take place? The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server. Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version. Visual Studio is too expensive, any alternatives? If you do not want to purchase VS, there are free alternatives. Microsoft® Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express provides you with everything you need to start building standards-friendly Web applications http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/ How can I store the form values in a database? You want to store the values from your ASP.NET form into a database and repopopulate the form when the user returns back. Connecting an ASP.NET form created with SpreadsheetConverter to a database is very easy if you know some programming and Visual Studio. I get "Common Language Runtime detected an invalid program." when generating an ASP.NET page You have run into a limit in Microsoft runtime engine CLR. There are two workarounds: 1. Reduce the size of the original spreadsheet. 2. Use Classic ASP instead, which doesn't have these restrictions. Can I create an ASP.NET usercontrol from the generated code? Yes. However, Visual Studio 2003 removes some styles part and renames the form from formc to formc[0]. You have to put the styles back, and make sure that the form is correctly referenced. I have IIS web server and ASP.NET has authentification. Can I use this to password protect the pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript? Yes. Change the extension from .htm to .aspx. Then, you should be able to use ASP.NET authentification system. How do I access the input and calculated values from the html page submitted? If you use ASP.NET, there are two simple solutions: 1. Loop over the ASP.NET-controls , se http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/as pnet/Default.htm 2. Generate a pure HTML-form (Select this in SSC to ASP.NET) and set the action=".." to point at your ASP-code which loops over the request-parameters. You loop over the collection called Request.Form. How do I publish my ASP.NET pages to my host? Here are a number of good tutorials: http://www.asp.net/learn/hosting/ Backend integration I would like to fetch some data from other sites or from a web service, how can I do that? It is easy to do, but requires some knowledge in JavaScript and HTML. Just add a JavaScript function that fetches the data and stores it into respective fields. If you look at the web page, you see that the form fields are named with the same names as the corresponding spreadsheet cells. You can make the new fields hidden and/or read-only. Does SpreadsheetConverter support webqueries? No, but it is easy to write code in ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP to insert and retrieve data. What is the underlying language to support the functionality of the spreadsheets? The HTML-version generates JavaScript, the ASP.NET version generates JScript, the JSP-version generates Java. Can I write code to replace the macros in ASP or Java? Yes, you can write functions of your own. Are the cells accessable from C#, VB.NET and Java? The cells are accessable, but not as a grid, but as variables and arrays. We optimized the grid away, since it in theory can contain 1,000,000 cells per sheet. How do I pre-populate input fields with data retrieved from a database? There are several solution. For example, you can send them over an URL with the syntax http://www.foo.com/calc.htm?bar=56 will set the field call bar to 56. You name cells in Excel. This assumes that you are prefilling an input cell. Here is a better solution that can be used to set any value. If you know ASP, the simplest solution is to take the HTML page, make it into a ASP-page over replace statements like p1A1 = 1234 with p1A1 = <%= reference to variable which contains the value for cell A1 on sheet 1 %> where 1234 is the default value that you set in Excel and which you want to read from the database instead. This solution also works for PHP. If you want to set constants, see <a href="http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/in itialize-values-on-server/Default.htm">How to initialize values on the server</a> Does SpreadsheetConverter support DDE funtionality? No. Billing, ordering, refunds Is it possible to email me an invoice? Yes, please contact the reseller SWREG or REGNOW where you bought the program. In the receipt you got, there is a link to a nice printable invoice. Where is the CD I ordered? Please contact orders@regnow.com regarding the CD. You can always download the program from our website: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm The download is only 9MB. What is Extended Download Service? Regnow will also offer <em>Extended Download Service</em> for additional $6.99. This means that Regnow keeps a backup of your purchase, which is good if our download site is unavailable. Browsers Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component? No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers. There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page. I get warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..."? If you use Windows XP SP2 you might get a warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..." The warning only appears during testing and not when the web page is published to a web server. Please upgrade to version 3.1.9 or later. Does SpreadsheetConverter support Netscape? SpreadsheetConverter for HTML version 2 support NS4 and IE4 and later. SpreadsheetConverter for HTML version 3 requires NS7 and IE5 and later. NS4 and IE4 is virtually non-existent nowadays. The generated web pages do no work in Windows Mobile 2003 Use Opera instead. The SpreadsheetConverter pages work fine using Opera as the browser. Presumably the IE version with Windows Mobile 2003 (Second Edition) does not contain a full implementation of Javascript. Calculation Does SpreadsheetConverter always calculate the correct result? Our goal is that if no errors or warnings are displayed during the conversion, the resulting web page should give the same result as Excel. If there are differences between Excel and SpreadsheetConverter, this is a bug. Please report the bug by email to support@spreadsheetconverter.com In general calculated results should be precisely identical to Excel up to the first 8 significant digits. Also, formatting of input numbers is handled differently. In Excel, if you enter 1.234567 and only want to show 2 decimals, you will see 1.23 but all calculations will use 1.234567. In SpreadsheetConverter, all calculations will use 1.23 Does SpreadsheetConverter handle the error values #N/A #ERROR #VALUE? Yes, all error values will be seen as the single value NaN (Not-a-Number). All error values are mapped to the same value, so you cannot distinguish between #VALUE and #N/A for example. Since not all users of web pages are used to using Excel, they may not be used to Excel's error values. Therefore, it is better to make sure that the error values are not shown to the user in order to avoid confusion. I get NaN instead of my values. SpreadsheetConverter sometimes has problem when mixing text and numbers in the same cell, for example a formula like =if(A1>0,A1,"") Replace formulas like this with =if(A1>0,A1,0) or =if(A1>0,A1,#N/A) Also, make sure that lookup tables contain values everywhere. Do not include the header in the range. Avoid mixing TEXT and NUMBERS. SpreadsheetConverter only converts the first 1000 rows to html format - what is wrong? SpreadsheetConverter automatically HIDES but does not delete rows below 1000. If you have lookup tables below row 1000, these will be part of the web page but invisible. The reason is that no one wants a web page with 1000 rows. I takes too long time to download and show in the browser. Workaround: Split the table between different worksheets or even better between workbooks. 218.46 isn't equal to 218.46. It is a rounding problem. D23 contains 218.46 but D24 contains 218.45999999999998 Instead of =IF(D23<>D24,"ERROR","OK") do =IF(abs(D23-D24)>0.001,"ERROR","OK") When I open the web page, where there should be calculations, all I get is a bunch of zeros. Press the recalculate button. Automatic recalculation is turned off when the spreadsheet is too big. How can I make calculated default values? In Excel you can have a formula and then let the user overwrite it, but that is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter, since formulas can never be changed. Workaround: You can implement calculated default values using 4 cells like this B1: FALSE B2: <formula for calculting default> B3: 0 B4: =IF(B1,B2,B3) If the checkbox is unset, the users defined value will be used, otherwise the calculated. Test here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.htm and spreadsheet here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.xls Run off-line from CD How can I distribute my web pages? Best is to zip them before emailing them. If you want to have a more professional installer, you can use Iexpress tool that is one of those undocumented components of Windows XP. Look in your XP windows\\system32 directory and double click on iexpress.exe. It will guide you through the process. Can the client access these converted calculators without the need to be on-line? Yes, the web page is self-contained and can be run from the harddisk or the CD. Can I convert the HTML pages to a executable? Yes, use an HTML to EXE converter. There are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion which also works very well. Charts Does SpreadsheetConverter support charts? SpreadsheetConverter for HTML supports 2D-charts: bar, column, pie and scatter. SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP and ASP&ASP.NET only supports charts for pure HTML pages. I have a chart but when I hide the table, the chart disappears. It seems that Excel automatically hides the chart if the underlaying table is hidden. Solution: move the table to another worksheet. I have a chart but all I get is a black rectangle. You have to copy the swf-file to the same location as the web page? If you forget that, you get a black rectangle. I upgraded to Flash player 8/9 and now I cannot test the charts. Flash 8 and 9 have some extra security checks which will prevent testing from the local files system. Do not be alarmed, this problem only occurs during testing and will not affect your customers and other users of the published web page. You do not need to change previously generated web pages. Click for more information I got the graphs to work properly w/ my chart when i test it - but when I post it to my website the chart is blank again. You need to copy the whole folder created by SpreadsheetConverter to the web server, including the file with extension .swf Controls: dropdown, checkbox, ... I would like to be able to select values from a dropdown-list (select) Lists created using Data-Validation-List in Excel will automatically be presented as dropdown-lists. I would like to be able to have a checkbox All input cells that contain TRUE/FALSE (or any localized version of it like WAHR in Germany), will automatically be presented as checkboxes. I want to limit input to a range. Such as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 Either create a dropdown list in Excel using Data-Validation-List, or put a formula like =IF(AND(A1>0;A1<11;A1=INT(A1)),"","Enter value between 1 and 10") in the cell next to the input cell. Format the text red, so that it will stand out. If have a formula like =IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100") but B6 isn't a checkbox on the web page. Change the formula =IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100") into =IF(B6=TRUE, 110, 100) The text "TRUE" is not the same as TRUE and the "110" is not the same as 110, you need to remove the quotes. Excel handles this better than SpreadsheetConverter, but sometimes even Excel will get unexcected behavior. I have tried to create a page with checkboxes by entering true or false....doesn't do anything....says' no input'....now what? If the cells isn't referenced by a formula, automatic detection will not work. You will have to make the background color yellow and select input cells using coloring. The downloaded form shows the checked radio button as a number and not by name. Microsoft implemented floating controls that way. Convert the number into a value using the function INDEX. For example the formula =INDEX({"one","two","three"},B6) will convert the B6 number 1,2,3 into the text "one","two","three" How do I create a checkbox? The easiest way to get a check box is to put TRUE or FALSE into a cell A1 and check its value using =IF(A1, ... , ... ). How do I create a combobox, also called pull-down menu? If you create a combo box in Excel using Data-Validation-List or View-Toolbar-Forms, there will be a combobox on the web page. For example see http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/time_date/time_d ate.htm SpreadsheetConverter doesn't supported dropdown-lists created using embedded constrols. How do I create a combobox with Data-Validation-List? Steps to produce a dropdown list in Excel. 1. Put the values of the dropdown list into a set of cells, for example 'Yes' in H1 and 'No' in H2 2. Go to the cells where you want the dropdown list. 3. Select 'Validation' from the 'Data' menu 4. Select Allow=List 5. Set the Source to H1:H2 6. Press ok Convert the page. Long text will not wrap Both input and calculated cells can wrap in version 4. You have to let the input cell go over several rows and merge the rows. (Just making the row high doesn't help). You need to set "Wrap text" in the Format dialog for the cell. How do I create a multi-line input textbox? Merge several rows and make it an input cells. Also, you need to set "Wrap text" in the Format dialog for the cell. Does SpreadsheetConverter support spinner controls? No. How does the taborder work? SpreadsheetConverter sets tabindex for each input cell, from left to right and from top to bottom. When at the last input cells IE will wrap around to the first input cell, and Netscape/Mozilla will wrap around to the first output cell. Why doesn't Enter go to the next field? Enter and HTML is a sad chapter, since someone early on defined that pressing Enter means submitting the form. A text saying that 'Press tab or Update to update all calculations' always helps some users. I have a dropdown list with 10%,20%... but SpreadsheetConverter shows 0.1, 0.2...? SpreadsheetConverter cannot handle % in dropdown lists. You have to place 100 times the percent value into the dropdown list, divide it by 100 when you read it, and the %-sign the cell to the ceft or right of the dropdown list. I have a dropdown list with dates but SpreadsheetConverter shows 37000,37001,... ? SpreadsheetConverter cannot handle dates in dropdown lists. Instead use DATE to build a date. See http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm What is your recommendation for TIME data entry -- e.g. time in and time out? Use 24 hour clock, or if 12 hour clock is very important, use 2 fields one for 0-11 and a dropdown list for AM/PM and use TIME(). Or you can use TIME to build time values, for an example see http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm To output date, use date formats, for example 'hh:mm' There is also a problem with date formatting. In excel I asigned a date format 31-12-2009 and after conversion the asp-file shows 31/12/2009. Why? We use the same format for dates as in regional settings. However, there might be issues. In the worst case, you might to have to change your input method and to like this: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/time_date/time_d ate.htm Database Instead of having my web form submit button send me an email, is it possible to store each submit in a database or file on my website? Yes, you can use Frontpage extension for that. You have to add a submit-button and have some kind of webserver to receive the submit. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/article/articleview/35/1 /1/Default.htm Flash movie showing how to save into Access database using Frontpage extension: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/demo/fpg_mdb/fpg_mdb.htm The advanced service will let you store the data into a database on our server. The data can be retrieved as HTML and Excel-reports. Can SpreadsheetConverter let me upload an Excel file through a web form - extract the records, and write them to a SQL server DB? No. I have a calculator linked to a huge database that is updated daily. Does the database also have to be uploaded? How can I best maintain the spreadsheet? SpreadsheetConverter for HTML cannot handle database connections. The only solution is to regenerate the web page each day. However, that doesn't seem to be a very good solution. Is there a way to send the results from submit to a PHP MySQL Table? SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard webform. When the user presses submit, the data is posted to a web page of your choice. You will have to create a simple PHP-page that parse the parameters and creates an sql-insert statement and runs it towards your database. This type of code is very simple and part of standard PHP-books. For example see http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php/6 and how to store into a mySQL database, see here http://www.timestretch.com/php_intro/?page=php_intro At the last link, they have combined the HTML-form and the PHP-file into one file. This is not necessary. First have the HTML-page and only make sure the action points at your PHP-page that extracts the data and stores it into a database. I noticed the one that calculates the distance between two cities. Yet, the database information was not shown on the resulting web page. You can decide what to show to the user. The rest is hidden in JavaScript. I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web. SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution: The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save spreadsheets using any browser. You can share a spreadsheet online and the users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a relational database. The data can be filtered, consolidated and accessed through reports and as Excel spreadsheets. Spreadsheets or single worksheets can be protected by password. It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc. You can read more at http://www.spreadsheetserver.com We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009. How can I store the data into a MS Access database? You can see a simple demo on how to do store the submitted data into an MS Access database using Frontpage at http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/demo/fpg_mdb/fpg_mdb.htm (I am sorry, there are no comments in the movie, but you can single step forwards.) Is there an option to connect the JSP version to a database, maybe integrate through some custom code written in Java ? You get the full source of the JSP-page and the JavaBeans. It is easy to add your specific code to the JSP-apge to save/read that data into a database or similar. If you want to see how the JSP-page and JavaBeans are structured, there is code at http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/websamples.htm How can I save all submits into a CSV, comma separated file? Use Frontpage extension. You will get a file on your webserver, where each set of answer is a row in the CSV-file. Can the JavaBeans be saved into an Oracle database? Yes, but you will have to supply the plumbing to the database yourself, either 1. You just serialize the JavaBeans 2. Or you map each individual input cell to a database column. Tip: Name the cells in Excel, and those names will be used in the JavaBean. I want PHP to save the resulting order configuration to MySQL using PHP. SpreadsheetConverter creates a standard webform, you can either convert it into an php-file or just set the action of the post to php-script that takes all the parameters and saves them into a database. If you name the input cells and calculated cells in Excel, then these names will be used in the web form. How can I store the form values in a database? You want to store the values from your ASP.NET form into a database and repopopulate the form when the user returns back. Connecting an ASP.NET form created with SpreadsheetConverter to a database is very easy if you know some programming and Visual Studio. Date & time calculations and I/O Do you know of a way to skip holidays on a date calculation? Use NETWORKDAYS(start_date,end_date,holidays) Returns the number of whole working days between start_date and end_date. Working days exclude weekends and any dates identified in holidays. Use NETWORKDAYS to calculate employee benefits that accrue based on the number of days worked during a specific term. Does SpreadsheetConverter support date calculations? Yes. You can see an example below, were we build the date using Excel's date function and substract the values. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm SpreadsheetConverter will convert the date calculations into JavaScript. I have a dropdown list with dates but SpreadsheetConverter shows 37000,37001,... ? SpreadsheetConverter cannot handle dates in dropdown lists. Instead use DATE to build a date. See http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm What is your recommendation for TIME data entry -- e.g. time in and time out? Use 24 hour clock, or if 12 hour clock is very important, use 2 fields one for 0-11 and a dropdown list for AM/PM and use TIME(). Or you can use TIME to build time values, for an example see http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm To output date, use date formats, for example 'hh:mm' There is also a problem with date formatting. In excel I asigned a date format 31-12-2009 and after conversion the asp-file shows 31/12/2009. Why? We use the same format for dates as in regional settings. However, there might be issues. In the worst case, you might to have to change your input method and to like this: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/time_date/time_d ate.htm Dreamweaver How do I change the look-and-feel of the page? The look-and-feel of the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter is defined by a number of style sheets in the header of the HTML-file. By changing the style sheet values the page layout will change. You can also open up the page in FrontPage or Dreamweaver and change the layout and look-and-feel. All calculations will continue to work as normal. I want to change the column width in Dreamweaver and Frontpage. Regarding column width, best is to correct these in Excel and then regenerate the web page, the web page should be within 20% of the Excel width. We have made many tests to make sure that we set the columns width such that it works as expected in many different browsers. An alternative is to open the regenerated page in Dreamweaver, switch to HTML-code view, and remove our width settings (see first in the <table). The columns will collapse, and you can now set them using Dreamweaver. Email Can I send the web page as an interactive HTML-email? Yes, you can send it. However, most email programs ignore JavaScript in email, and therefore recalculation will not work. JavaScript is disabled to prevent infection from viruses. Therefor it is better to publish the web site and email the link. I do not want to use FrontPage server extension, any alternatives? You can use our free or advanced service. If your web server supports Perl, formmail.pl is an alternative. See http://www.formmail.com/ If you use a Windows server, look at formmail.asp http://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp or if you prefer ASP.NET http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Formmail_in_ASP .NET If you use PHP, here are some http://www.dtheatre.com/scripts/formmail.php http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/29699.html For Java, see http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/21178.html http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/6177.html and "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip I requested a receiver code but I did not get an email with the codes. If you entered the email address correctly - you can try a second time - then most likely AOL has decided that the email with the receiver code is spam and has deleted it. You have to try another email address. What if I want a customer to receive a copy of what they submitted? How do I get the submitted data to come to me and them? This will be part of the advanced service, not is not yet implemented (Oct-2008) In order to prevent spammers to use your form to send spam to arbitrary email addresses, we have to make sure that there a human who submitted the form. Before sending the copy to the submitter, he/she will have to enter a security code similar to the code at https://secure.overture.com/s/dtc/center/?mkt=us Suppose I survey 2000 students. I get 2000 e-mails. Do you have a macro or quick way to get the results back into a spreadsheet? That functionality is part of our advanced service. The cost is $15/month. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/hosting/advanced-submit- service.htm An alternative is to configure your own webserver, for example Frontpage extension can collect submitted data into a CSV-file, which easily is opened by Excel. I have sent some htlm files to a few people. When they open them they are opening them in their email page. How can I make this stop happening? Instead of attaching the HTML-files, attach the ZIP-file that SpreadsheetConverter generates. This will solve your problem and make the email much smaller. Then you have to tell the user to open the zip file, extract the files and click on the HTM-file. How do I apply for the advance service? Request a receiver code and check the advanced service. The receiver code for the free service and the advanced service is the same. If you decide to continue to use it, and want to enable the full Advanced Service, contact sales@spreadsheetconverter.com How do I create a submit form so that the form information goes to an email? You can read about our submit support here http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/excel_form_submit_email. htm Then, you create a form using Excel, start SpreadsheetConverter and select 'Submit'-button under 'Configure toolbar'. The first time you add a submit button, you will have to request a receiver code, so that we know where to send the email. The relevant section in the manual is found here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/SpreadsheetConver ter%20Users%20Guide.htm#dialog_toolbar Why can't I enter a mailto:-link, why do I need to submit through a webserver? The contents of a web form cannot be emailed directly. You need to add a submit-button, the submit-button will send the data to a server, and the server can for example email the entered values. Why do I get an email with fields with names lie p2C144? If you name the cells in Excel, those names will be used instead of p2C144 The email with submitted data names the fields like p1A3, p1D3, p1E3 The email looks like this: p1A3: 5 p1D3: 9,50 p1E3: 47,50 If you name the individual cells in Excel, these names will be used as names. Note that they must start with a letter, and only contain letters, digits and "_". Also note that the Advanced Service sends you a snapshot of the whole form as it looked to the user. I want the form to be emailed to different persons depending on the value of a dropdown list. So in other words, there isn't anything to where we can add to the excel spreadsheet that would have a down down menu with a list of email addresses and when its submitted it would get sent in conjunction with the notice to whoever would get that, also to the person or persons selected for the drop down list in the spreadsheet?? The email is always mailed to the same address, at least if you use our Advanced or Free Service. A workaround is to mail it to the same email address, and then have a filter in the email server that looks for a value and forwards the email to the right person. Exchange and Outlook supports filters like this. I will need to have the submissions sent to another email address, what do I do? Request a new receiver code for the new email address, enter it into the wizard and regenerate the web page, and then publish the new page. Can the submit buttom be configured to send an auto response to the person submitting the form as well as to me? No, not directly. However, if you named the cell in Excel where the user enters his email address "email", you can set up an auto-responder on your own email address. How would you go about setting up different Forms with different email addresses for Submit? Example - Some forms would go top Bob is shipping, another to Sally in accounting and yet another to Harry in IT. Is there a way to change the email addresses locally? You need to request one receiver code for each email address, and then have that receiver code entered in the wizard when you generate the form. Where can I change the e-mail of the Advanced Service to where the forms are send to? The Advanced Service consists of two parts 1. The email looks like the web page 2. The fields are stored in a database for later retrival. You get 1. by selecting Advanced Service in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard You get 2. by using a recevier code for an email address that is known to SpreadsheetServer. When we set up the Advanced Service account for you, you got one login + password. Create a new user for the second email address whose submits you want to store, request a receiver code for this second email address, enter it into the wizard, convert and publish. Error during conversion I cannot convert this file... I keep getting Err 1004... Do as the dialog says: Delete all VBA-code in all modules and in the spreadsheets. It is probably protected in some way. What does the error message overlapping ranges mean? SpreadsheetConverter tries to detect which datatype ranges contain. By doing that, we can generate much more efficient and compact code. Try to make sure that ranges only contain numbers or only texts. If you get this error message, please verify the calculated values. If you see any unexpected NaN, you have to clean up the ranges. What does the error message "Range should be ordered since it is used by a lookup operation" mean? From the Excel documentation of VLOOKUP: If range_lookup is TRUE, the values in the first column of table_array must be placed in ascending order: ..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, ..., A-Z, FALSE, TRUE; otherwise VLOOKUP may not give the correct value. If range_lookup is FALSE, table_array does not need to be sorted. Make sure that the range only contain the active part of the lookup table. Do not include the header in the range. Also make sure that the range is ordered otherwise reorder it. What does "Don't forget that the 3rd argument of HLOOKUP/VLOOKUP must evaluate to a number between 1 and 51." mean? The third argument of HLOOKUP is the column index. If the value of that argument is outside the range 1 and 51, for example 0, SpreadsheetConverter will not calculcate the correct result since you are making a lookup outside the range. This is just a warning. Excel What is the difference between SpreadsheetConverter and Excel's "save as HTML"? Excel's own "save as HTML" exists in two versions, either you choose to create a non-interactive web page, and then Excel creates a static formatted table with all the values you see in Excel. The values cannot be changed. If you instead select to save your spreadsheet as an interactive page, you will be able to change the contents of the cells, and the values will be recalculated. Microsoft does this by using a large ActiveX-component (2MB in size), which your users are only allowed to use if they own MS Office. SpreadsheetConverter creates an interactive web page using JavaScript to do the calculations. The advantages of using web pages produced by SpreadsheetConverter are that they can be run on any browser, on any OS, and without any licenses. Can I save the web page as an Excel workbook? No, there is no direct saving functionality in the resulting web page. However, since all of the fields are contained within a HTML-form, you can submit the form to a web server and store all of the field values in a file on the web server. If you do not want to build this solution yourself, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML has built-in submit support, called the Advanced Service. Another alternative is to use a web server enabled with the FrontPage server extensions, all fields will be stored into a tab-separated file on the server. Does SpreadsheetConverter read .XLS files? No, SpreadsheetConverter reads your Excel formulas and data and compiles them into a stand-alone program. Does SpreadsheetConverter support macros, VBA, or custom functions? SpreadsheetConverter does not support macros and VBA. Custom functions are supported. Please contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information. If have a formula like =IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100") but B6 isn't a checkbox on the web page. Change the formula =IF(B6="TRUE", "110", "100") into =IF(B6=TRUE, 110, 100) The text "TRUE" is not the same as TRUE and the "110" is not the same as 110, you need to remove the quotes. Excel handles this better than SpreadsheetConverter, but sometimes even Excel will get unexcected behavior. I am interested in your product but need to know what your product does better than Excel's own "save as web page" built-in utility. Save as web page in Excel can be done in two different ways: 1. static page 2. interactive page When you save as static page, only the current contents of the cells are used, and you cannot change any values and by that trigger any recalculations. When you save as interactive page, the resulting web page will use an ActiveX-component that will handle the recalculations. The page looks exactly as in Excel, and all people who wants to view the page needs to install the ActiveX-component from either their Office-CDs or from Microsofts website (the component is about 2 MB big). You are only allowed to use the ActiveX-component if you have an Office-license. However, most SpreadsheetConverter customers do not buy our software in order to create static pages. The use it to create interactive pages. Typical examples of interactive pages are different kinds of calculators, for example engineering, tuition fees, return-of-investment calculations, or for creating order pages with builtin summation and postage fees. SpreadsheetConverter makes it possible to publish spreadsheets on the internet so that anyone can use them as long as they have access to a browser, no extra add-ins are needed. It is also easy to improve the layout of the resulting web page using tools like MS Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver. It is very easy to mix the calculator with other graphical components like pictures and similar. I want to paste a bunch of data into the several fields, can SpreadsheetConverter do this? No. Only single cells can be pasted in. More is not supported by the browsers. Does SpreadsheetConverter allow the deployment of custom Toolbars (.xlb files) and Add-In Applications (.xla files)? No. Once you generated the web page using SpreadsheetConverter, neither you or your visitors needs Excel. Does SpreadsheetConverter support DDE funtionality? No. How do I create something like If A1=1, 5; If A2=1.5, 6; If A3=2, 7; If A4=2.5, 8; If A5=3, 9? You nest the ifs like this: =if(a1=1, 5, if(a2=1.5, 6, if(a3=2.7, 7, if(a4=2.5, 8, if(a5=3, 9, 0))))) How do I reduce the size of an Excel spreadsheet? This tip is taken from the new book F1 Get the Most out of Excel! (See http://www.exceltip.com/pl-f1_index ) By reducing the size, the conversion will go faster and the web page might be smaller. To reduce the workbook size: 1. Press Ctrl+End to find the last cell in the used area within the worksheet. In the screenshot, the last cell is E17. 2. Find the last cell containing data in the worksheet. In the screenshot, the last cell containing data is cell C11. 3. Delete all the rows between the cells containing data to the row of the last cell in the used area. In the screenshot, the rows to delete are 12:17. 4. Delete all columns to the right of the column of the last cell containing data, up to the column of the last cell in the used area. In the screenshot, the columns to delete are D:E 5. To quickly delete the rows, select the first row to delete (row 12 in the screenshot), press Ctrl+Shift+Down Arrow, To quickly delete the columns, select the first column to delete (column D in the screenshot), and press Ctrl+Shift+Right Arrow, press Shift+F10 and from shortcut menu click Delete. 6. Repeat the steps above for each worksheet in the entire workbook. Press Ctrl+S to save the file. Is there a way to just display certain cells and hide those you do not want to see? There are two solutions: 1. Move the cells to another worksheet. 2. Hide the row or column containing the cells you want to hide. Can users edit the spreadsheet in real time? No, formulas are always protected. Does the user have to have Excel on their pc? No. Formatting Does SpreadsheetConverter support cell formatting such as background color and border styles? Yes. Does SpreadsheetConverter support conditional formatting? No. Input cells alignment is not perfect. The second input cell still dropped slightly below the others. Set vertical align = center. The column is narrower/wider than it is in Excel. The browser always has the final word regarding column width. You can try if layout=fixed helps If you are running version 3. The same goes for heights. Normally these problems occurs if some column contain too wide data. Merge cells to make them fit. In Excel one of my spreadsheets fits onto A4 height, but when I convert with either HTML or ASP, the converted sheet is longer than A4. This is a problem because I want users to be able to print out one of the sheets. Unless you set layout=fixed, the rows will be higher on the web page than in Excel. However layout=fixed will make the web pages look cramped, it is better to let the web pages become higher. How do I specify C3 to have a $ currency symbol in it's total? Ctrl-1 to open the format dialog, and select currency format. I have set the formatting so that all zero values are invisible. When I convert the spreadsheet to web page, all of the zeros show up. Is there any way to hide the display of zeros on the web page? You have to use a formula to solve that problem. For example, if you have =A1 in A2, replace it by =if(A1=0,"",A1) I would like to use an excel sheet for making bookings. How do I let the excel sheet know I want to input text into the sheet. The logic is that if you use the value for a mathematical operation, it will be a number. If you do not refer to it or refer to is as a text (e.g. =if(a1="","Enter a value",""), it will a text-field. If you use 'Automatic detection', only cells referred to will be input fields. If Automatic detection doesn't work, you have to use coloring. Set the background colors of all cells you want the user to edit to an arbitrary unique color. Then, select coloring and select the color. (If you do not want your input cells to have this color in the finished spreadsheet, there is an option for that.) How do I protect certain cells so that entries cannot be made to them? The user can only edit input cells. All other cells and formulas are automatically protected on the web page. Is there a way to just display certain cells and hide those you do not want to see? There are two solutions: 1. Move the cells to another worksheet. 2. Hide the row or column containing the cells you want to hide. My image or clipart has a grey background. When you insert a clipart, you might get a grey background. Solution: 1. Right-click on the image and select Format picture 2. Select Colors and Lines tab 3. Change Fill-color to Automatic (or you background color) from 'No fill' Does the SpreadsheetConverter support hidden rows? There are many rows used for internal calculation steps, containing data that should not be seen by the user. The rows will be hidden on the web page. If the contents is referenced by formulas, they will be part of the resulting web page (not visible for the user). Columns and sheets can be hidden too. How can I change the border color around input cells when the thin borders option is selected? This is not as easy as it should be :-) There are two ways: 1. Instead of thin border, no border and set the borders of the cells in Excel. There you can select the color. 2. Generate the web page and open the source. Replace #000000 in style='border:1px solid #000000; width:100% ' by the color, for example #ff0000 style='border:1px solid #ff0000; width:100% ' to get red borders. How can negative numbers be presented with parenthesis, i.e. -250.00 should be represented as (250.00)? This is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter v 3.x. We didn't think it was needed, since no one on the web understands it :-) Workaround: You need to solve it using IF + TEXT. =if(A1<0, "(" & -A1 & ")", A1) If you need to format the number, replace -A1 above with something like TEXT(-A1,"#,##0.00") Thus, something like this =IF(A1<0, "(" & TEXT(-A1,"#,##0.00") & ")", TEXT(A1,"#,##0.00")) I use the ASP.NET version. There is only a problem with empty cells. They show up with a 0-value and aren't empty. Why? The 0 is actually a feature, SSC has deduced that the cell can only numbers, and will place a 0 in the cell when the user leaves the cell. Solution: If A1 is one of your input cells, add the formula somewhere in the spreadsheet: =A1="" (or any other formula that make SSC think A1 contains a text). Frontpage I would like to add a SpreadsheetConverter web page to my web. I use FrontPage. If you have navigational bars on top or to the left in your web site, you cannot use 'Insert-file' into an existing web page. If you do FrontPage will create a non-working web page! Instead you must use the following method to add the page: Select File-Import and press Add File. Select the file generated by SpreadsheetConverter. Open the newly inserted page. Note that it contains no navigational bars. Select Format-Theme and select the default theme. Select Format-Shared Borders and apply to the selected page. Select View-Navigation and using drag-and-drop move the inserted page to the location where you want it. Right-click on the page that you just moved and make sure that ’Included in Navigation bar’ is selected. Now, your page should appear like the other pages in your web site and the navigation structure should include the new page. How do I change the look-and-feel of the page? The look-and-feel of the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter is defined by a number of style sheets in the header of the HTML-file. By changing the style sheet values the page layout will change. You can also open up the page in FrontPage or Dreamweaver and change the layout and look-and-feel. All calculations will continue to work as normal. How do I create a web form that uses a FrontPage server extensions enabled web server? When you create a form to be used by a web server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (for example Microsoft IIS or Apache), follow these steps: Create the Excel spreadsheet. Name the input and output cells in Excel (This step is not mandatory, but makes the result easier to understand). Create the web page using SpreadsheetConverter. Start FrontPage. Load the web page created in step 3 into FrontPage. Put the cursor somewhere in the form near the input fields, right-click, and select 'Form properties'. The minimum you must do is to select 'Send to' and enter the email address. Save the web page. Publish the web page onto your web server. I do not want to use FrontPage server extension, any alternatives? You can use our free or advanced service. If your web server supports Perl, formmail.pl is an alternative. See http://www.formmail.com/ If you use a Windows server, look at formmail.asp http://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp or if you prefer ASP.NET http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Formmail_in_ASP .NET If you use PHP, here are some http://www.dtheatre.com/scripts/formmail.php http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/29699.html For Java, see http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/21178.html http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/6177.html and "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip Will Frontpage extensions disappear? Windows SharePoint Service will replace Frontpage Extensions, see http://www.sharepointcustomization.com/default.aspx Instead of having my web form submit button send me an email, is it possible to store each submit in a database or file on my website? Yes, you can use Frontpage extension for that. You have to add a submit-button and have some kind of webserver to receive the submit. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/article/articleview/35/1 /1/Default.htm Flash movie showing how to save into Access database using Frontpage extension: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/demo/fpg_mdb/fpg_mdb.htm The advanced service will let you store the data into a database on our server. The data can be retrieved as HTML and Excel-reports. Is the converted html document able to be edited in FrontPage? Yes. How do I insert an SpreadsheetConverter page into Frontpage? Create a new web page in Frontpage, then do as "Insert a spreadsheet on an existing web page" on page 42 in the SpreadsheetConverter manual. We would need to modify or add-on some code since for our purpose we need to add some additional features. Is this possible? (The type of things we need to add are security and usage tracking.) We generate a plain HTML-form, as long as you do not rename the controls, you can edit the web page. How do I know if my web host installed FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) on my account? You can confirm that FPSE was successfully installed and are functional by browsing to the page "_vti_inf.html" at the root of your domain. For example - http://www.mydomainname.com/_vti_inf.html . If the FrontPage configuration page loads then that is your confirmation page. A "page cannot be found" or other such server error would indicate that FPSE needs to be installed or reinstalled by the host. From http://www.publishermvps.com/WebDesign/FAQ/tabid/30/Default. aspx Is Frontpage Extensions still supported by Microsoft? No, Frontpage Extensions has been discontinued by Microsoft. However, as of December 18, 2010, Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions (FPSE) 2002 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 RTM is supported by Ready-to-Run Software. For support and servicing, contact Ready-to-Run Software, Inc You can download Frontpage Extensions for IIS 7.0 at <a href="http://www.iis.net/community/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=163 0">http://www.iis.net/community/ Functions Is the function XYZ supported? Please refer to the current list of supported functions: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/products/supported-excel -functions.htm We constantly add more supported functions. If there is a function XYZ you need, please let us know, and we may prioritize it. Does SpreadsheetConverter handle the error values #N/A #ERROR #VALUE? Yes, all error values will be seen as the single value NaN (Not-a-Number). All error values are mapped to the same value, so you cannot distinguish between #VALUE and #N/A for example. Since not all users of web pages are used to using Excel, they may not be used to Excel's error values. Therefore, it is better to make sure that the error values are not shown to the user in order to avoid confusion. What functions does SpreadsheetConverter support? See the SpreadsheetConverter Functions document at http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/products/supported-excel -functions.htm If the function you're looking for is not there, let us know. Does SpreadsheetConverter support arrays? Yes, array syntax such as {3;4;5} is supported. Does SpreadsheetConverter support functions like MMULT that return arrays? No, not yet. Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to change cell formulas at runtime? No, SpreadsheetConverter protects formulas from change. How can I make WORKDAY handle holidays? The WORKDAY function has a 3rd argument which points to a range of holidays. You have to maintain that range yourself. See the documention for WORKDAY in Excel. How do I make formula cells editable (if the user wants to overwrite the value calculated by formula)? Currently formulas cannot be overwritten. Workaround: Have 2 fields + checkbox. If the checkbox is set use the calculated value, if it is unset, you the override value. Do you know of a way to skip holidays on a date calculation? Use NETWORKDAYS(start_date,end_date,holidays) Returns the number of whole working days between start_date and end_date. Working days exclude weekends and any dates identified in holidays. Use NETWORKDAYS to calculate employee benefits that accrue based on the number of days worked during a specific term. Does SpreadsheetConverter support lookup-functions? Yes. I need function XXX? If a function you need isn't supported, please let us know. Workaround: If the precision you need isn't high, create a table of XXX-values. The Copy the table and make Paste-Special-Values only. Then use INDEX to lookup your value in the table. Is there a way to have SpreadsheetConverter support a new function? Yes, if you can define the function yourself, you can make it a user defined function, and the SpreadsheetConverter generated code will call it. We also add new functions by request. Does SpreadsheetConverter support date calculations? Yes. You can see an example below, were we build the date using Excel's date function and substract the values. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/date_dropdown_lis t.htm SpreadsheetConverter will convert the date calculations into JavaScript. How do I create something like If A1=1, 5; If A2=1.5, 6; If A3=2, 7; If A4=2.5, 8; If A5=3, 9? You nest the ifs like this: =if(a1=1, 5, if(a2=1.5, 6, if(a3=2.7, 7, if(a4=2.5, 8, if(a5=3, 9, 0))))) My spreadsheet uses OFFSET and INDIRECT, which isn't supported. Try using INDEX instead. Can users edit the spreadsheet in real time? No, formulas are always protected. Reference card for JavaScript Look at http://javascript-reference.info/ from Visibone, which has a lot of nice printed reference cards. http://www.visibone.com/ Does SpreadsheetConverter support user-defined functions, macros, VBA or Visual Basic? Macros, VBA, Visual Basic are not handled by SpreadsheetConverter, only Excel formulas and about 300 Excel functions. However, if you can translate these functions yourself, the generated code can call it. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/support/user-defined-fun ctions/ Why doesn't COUNT, COUNTA, COUNTBLANK work 100% as in Excel? The problem with COUNT is due to Excel's complex empty cell rule. Place =A1 in A2 and you get 0. Why isn't A2 empty? It is the same as A1. But if you do COUNTBLANK(A1:A2), the result is 1. We are working in this. General Does SpreadsheetConverter support references to other workbooks? SpreadsheetConverter supports references between worksheets within a workbook, but not off-book references. Does SpreadsheetConverter support arrays? Yes, array syntax such as {3;4;5} is supported. Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to change cell formulas at runtime? No, SpreadsheetConverter protects formulas from change. Does SpreadsheetConverter support named cells? Yes. It is recommended that you name the cells in Excel if you use submit. The names in Excel will be used to name the fields in the submitted form. Does SpreadsheetConverter support Pivot Tables? No. Does your product convert Excel files with multiple (linked) sheets inside? -- also including formulas, etc? It converts the whole workbook including all worksheets and links between worksheets. I get warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..."? If you use Windows XP SP2 you might get a warning "...restricted this file from showing active content..." The warning only appears during testing and not when the web page is published to a web server. Please upgrade to version 3.1.9 or later. I noticed the one that calculates the distance between two cities. Yet, the database information was not shown on the resulting web page. You can decide what to show to the user. The rest is hidden in JavaScript. I would like to use an excel sheet for making bookings. How do I let the excel sheet know I want to input text into the sheet. The logic is that if you use the value for a mathematical operation, it will be a number. If you do not refer to it or refer to is as a text (e.g. =if(a1="","Enter a value",""), it will a text-field. If you use 'Automatic detection', only cells referred to will be input fields. If Automatic detection doesn't work, you have to use coloring. Set the background colors of all cells you want the user to edit to an arbitrary unique color. Then, select coloring and select the color. (If you do not want your input cells to have this color in the finished spreadsheet, there is an option for that.) Does the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter for HTML work offline. Yes, you can also save the web page to your local harddisk, and the calculations still works. Can the client access these converted calculators without the need to be on-line? Yes, the web page is self-contained and can be run from the harddisk or the CD. My workbook contains links to other web page, for example elememts.htm, after conversion, they do not work SpreadsheetConverter always generates a folder where all the files for a specific spreadsheet is stored. You have to edit the generated page. Depending on where you place the element.htm, replace elements.htm by ../elements.htm Generate I create input fields using the drawing toolbar. They do not work. Input cells are created by using one or more cells in the sheet. You cannot use the drawing toolbar. Hosting Does the ISP who is hosting my site have to publish the calculator on to the webserver? No, it is a plain web page. IIS, Microsoft Information Server How do I create a web form that uses a FrontPage server extensions enabled web server? When you create a form to be used by a web server that supports FrontPage Server Extensions (for example Microsoft IIS or Apache), follow these steps: Create the Excel spreadsheet. Name the input and output cells in Excel (This step is not mandatory, but makes the result easier to understand). Create the web page using SpreadsheetConverter. Start FrontPage. Load the web page created in step 3 into FrontPage. Put the cursor somewhere in the form near the input fields, right-click, and select 'Form properties'. The minimum you must do is to select 'Send to' and enter the email address. Save the web page. Publish the web page onto your web server. How can I secure my SpreadsheetConverter calculator? Place it on an HTTPS:-site and password protect it. How to password protect depends on which type of webserver you are using. How make users login before using my calculator? If you are using SpreadsheetConverter/ExcelEverywhere to HTML and want your users to login before they can use the calculator, the solution is to use the authentification of the web server to handle this. Both Internet Information Server (IIS) and Apache handles this. If you use IIS, you can create normal Windows users and deny guest access to your web server. If you use Apache, here is an article describing it: Protect Web sites with Apache Server's HTTP authentication system. Alternatively, you can program the authentification yourself. Secure your Web pages with custom authentication Or, you can use ASP.NET's form authentification. A simple solution is to store name + password in web.config. ASP.NET Form Authenticiation tutorial The SpreadsheetServer also handles logins. Configure IIS for ASP.NET For Windows XP, see http://www.wherecanibuyit.co.uk/computer/iis5_on_xp.html For Windows Vista, see http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=206237 http://www.iis.net/articles/view.aspx/IIS7/Deploy-an-IIS7-Se rver/Installing-IIS7/Install-IIS7-on-Vista How do I publish my ASP.NET pages to my host? Here are a number of good tutorials: http://www.asp.net/learn/hosting/ Input cells and input fields How do I make formula cells editable (if the user wants to overwrite the value calculated by formula)? Currently formulas cannot be overwritten. Workaround: Have 2 fields + checkbox. If the checkbox is set use the calculated value, if it is unset, you the override value. I create input fields using the drawing toolbar. They do not work. Input cells are created by using one or more cells in the sheet. You cannot use the drawing toolbar. I cannot enter free text into a cell. Is there a trick? List boxes seem to be working, but I'm trying to do something as basic as having the user type in a company name. You have to set the background color of all input cells to yellow and then select input cells using color. You can also let SpreadsheetConverter make all unlocked cells input cells. I would like to use an excel sheet for making bookings. How do I let the excel sheet know I want to input text into the sheet. The logic is that if you use the value for a mathematical operation, it will be a number. If you do not refer to it or refer to is as a text (e.g. =if(a1="","Enter a value",""), it will a text-field. If you use 'Automatic detection', only cells referred to will be input fields. If Automatic detection doesn't work, you have to use coloring. Set the background colors of all cells you want the user to edit to an arbitrary unique color. Then, select coloring and select the color. (If you do not want your input cells to have this color in the finished spreadsheet, there is an option for that.) How can I clear all input cells and reset them to their default value? During generate, select to include a reset button. When pressed, all values will be reset. I want a numeric input field. If you want to force a cells to only allow numeric input, you have to make sure it is only used by numerical functions. My spreadsheet contains no formulas and the generated form doesn't contain any fields I can edit. You need to help SpreadsheetConverter identify all the cells you want the user to edit in your spreadsheet. The automatic detection only works if there are formulas. Either add formulas, or if you want a form only, color all the input cells orange, and select orange in the wizard. How can I make calculated default values? In Excel you can have a formula and then let the user overwrite it, but that is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter, since formulas can never be changed. Workaround: You can implement calculated default values using 4 cells like this B1: FALSE B2: <formula for calculting default> B3: 0 B4: =IF(B1,B2,B3) If the checkbox is unset, the users defined value will be used, otherwise the calculated. Test here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.htm and spreadsheet here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.xls Installation I have installation problems! Please view http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm The first time I start SpreadsheetConverter from the start-menu, it asks if I should enable the macros? Yes. If you do not enable it, SpreadsheetConverter will not work. Why do I get "A document with the name 'xlew1.xla is already open. You cannot ..." when I start SpreadsheetConverter from the start menu? You only need to start SpreadsheetConverter from the start menu in the following two circumstances: - The first time you run SpreadsheetConverter after installing it. - After selecting ‘Disable auto-start’ from the SpreadsheetConverter menu in Excel. SpreadsheetConverter is an Excel Add-in, and is automatically started each time Excel is started. You get the error “Excel file already opened” message because SpreadsheetConverter is already started and you are trying to start a second copy of the program. I installed the program, but there is no SpreadsheetConverter-menu in Excel Most likely, Excel has disabled SpreadsheetConverter. Excel does that when Excel crashes during start-up. If you use Excel 2007: Click on the round football top left corner in Excel. At the bottom you find "Excel Options". Select Add-ins. At the bottom you can select "Disabled Items". Select GO and enable them. See this screenshot http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/support/disabled-addin-i n-excel-2007.png If you use Excel 2003: In Excel 2000-2003, select Tools-Customize. Then, select the tab called "Commands" Under Tools, there are additional commands like Tools-Addins and Tools-COM addins. Drag these entries to the Excel tool menu. Then, select COM-addins from the Excel Tools menu and make sure SpreadsheetConverter is selected. Here is a movie descring how: http://screencast.com/t/Kr09dbZQNgUn You can read more about disabled addins and Office here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms268871(VS.80).aspx If you are using v 3.5 or earlier, click on the 'Browse' button and select xlew1.xla from the directory where you installed SpreadsheetConverter. Macros in this workbook are disabled because of the security level is high, ... Part of SpreadsheetConverter is written as an Excel macro. The first time you use SpreadsheetConverter, i.e, when you select 'Start SpreadsheetConverter', the security level cannot be high. Temporarily change the security level to medium, select 'Start SpreadsheetConverter' (or 'Install SpreadsheetConverter into Excel'), and then change the security level back to high. The security level is changed from the 'Tools' menu under 'Macro-Security'. Please note that the change is only required the first time you run SpreadsheetConverter, after that every time you start Excel, SpreadsheetConverter will start automatically, even if your security level is high. I have both more than one Excel installed on one computer. Is it possible to register for both versions and if so how? Yes, it is possible if you use different versions of SpreadsheetConverter, for example v3 and v4. I upgrade from version 2 to version 3. What is the preferred method for removing the older version as it still shows up on my menu bar? Exit Excel and uninstall it using Add/Remove program in the Control panel. SpreadsheetConverter worked fine but now the SpreadsheetConverter menu does not appear when I open my Excel. If the menu disappears, you do not have to install SpreadsheetConverter again. Selecting 'Install SpreadsheetConverter into Excel' should be enough. If you are using Excel 2007, click on the round football top left corner in Excel. At the bottom you find "Excel Options". Select Add-ins. At the bottom you can select "Disabled Items". Select GO and enable them. If you are not using Excel 2007 go to Tools-Add-ins and see if you have something called 'XLEW' or 'SpreadsheetConverter Add-in'. If so, set the checkbox alongside and click on OK. If SpreadsheetConverter is not present in the list (Tools-Add-ins...), click on the 'Browse' button and select xlew1.xla from the directory where you installed SpreadsheetConverter. I get "This workbook has lost its VBA project, ActiveX and any other programmability-related features" during installation You have an Excel-installation without VBA. VBA is needed by SpreadsheetConverter. Load the Excel or Office-CD and select VBA under Shared Components. Do you have any installation instructions for running on a Tomcat server. If you install Tomcat using the default paths, and set the paths as shown in the wizard - you have to move the cursor over the label so see the whole path - it works. You can test your Tomcat installation by opening up http://localhost:8080/examples/jsp Please try the examples included by tomcat and make sure that these works. I get installer verification failed during installation? You have downloaded a corrupt installer program. Please delete the file and download again. The SpreadsheetConverter menu button disappears after restarting Start Excel, Select Tools-Addins and select XLEW or SpreadsheetConverter. Apache Tomcat 5.5 and later complains about compilation errors when regenerating the web page The JVM running the tomcat server has already loaded the servlet's .class file and initialised the servlet object. It won't reload the .class file or restart the servlet automatically. One solution is to stop and then restart tomcat, so it will use the new .class file. Another solution is to use the manager application (see below) to issue a reload command for your web application. This will force tomcat to reload the new .class files without having to shutdown tomcat. For example: If your web application is called myapp and located in webapp/myapp, then using the following URL will use the manager to reload the application: http://localhost:8080/manager/reload?path=/myapp (Your server name and application name will be different.) For more information, see http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t140821-recompile-jsp- with-java-classes.html Can I install the software on more than one computer? If you are the only user of the two computers, you can request permission to install our software on both by sending an e-mail to sales@spreadsheetconverter.com. How do I update my installation? Download the last version from our website and install it. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm Where is the CD I ordered? Please contact orders@regnow.com regarding the CD. You can always download the program from our website: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm The download is only 9MB. Dot.Net 2.0 not installed Please, copy the following path and open it using the Windows Explorer %SYSTEMROOT%\\Microsoft.NET\\Framework\\v2.0.50727 and check if you have any files there. (%SYSTEMROOT% is a system variable depending which Windows you use) This is .Net 2.0 installer http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=085 6eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en or search on google for ".net 2.0 installer" Also, make sure you have the necessary service packs for .Net 2.0 installed. Have you enabled WIndows Update? Integration I want to make the calculator part of an existing web page? If you ever need to insert a spreadsheet on an existing page in your web, just follow the steps below. Create the spreadsheet in Excel. Convert the spreadsheet to a web page using SpreadsheetConverter. Open the resulting web page in your html editor. Using your html editor, also open the existing page where the spreadsheet is to be inserted. In the <head> … </head> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with <!-- Header start --> and ending with <!-- Header end --> and copy it (including the leading and trailing comment) to the end of the <head> … </head> section of the existing page. In the <body> … </body> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with <!-- Body start --> and ending with <!-- Body end --> and copy it to where you want the spreadsheet to appear in the <body> … </body> section of the existing page. (optional) Copy the onload-event from <body into your <body-tag. Typically the onload-event looks like this: <body onload="initial_update();document.formc.pA1A.focus();"> It initializes the form and places the cursor at the first field. Is there a way to select the "charset" to none insted of charset=UTF-8. There is no simple solution, however this should work: Let SpreadsheetConverter generate an UTF-8 file and then convert it into a suitable encoding. One such tool is iconv, which is free. Download iconv.exe and execute iconv.exe -t windows-1252 -f utf-8 old.htm > new.htm and then change the row <meta content="text/html;charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> to <meta content="text/html;charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type"> --- How to download and install iconv: Download the file called libiconv-1.8.0-2003.02.01-1.exe and gettext-0.11.5-2003.02.01-1.exe from http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml#hdr1 and install them into the same directory, for example c:\\iconv In the bin dir of the installation, i.e. c:\\iconv\\bin you find iconv.exe (and some dlls it needs). Internationalization, localization I use a localized Excel for language XYZ, does SpreadsheetConverter support it? In Germany and many other European countries, a comma is used to signify a decimal point. SpreadsheetConverter formats numbers in your spreadsheet in exactly the same way as your own version of Excel. SpreadsheetConverter should be able to support most localized versions of Excel. In the Excel for Belarus, People's Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tatarstan, Uzbekistan, the local formatting will not be recognized. US formatting of dates and numbers will be used instead. Is there a way to select the "charset" to none insted of charset=UTF-8. There is no simple solution, however this should work: Let SpreadsheetConverter generate an UTF-8 file and then convert it into a suitable encoding. One such tool is iconv, which is free. Download iconv.exe and execute iconv.exe -t windows-1252 -f utf-8 old.htm > new.htm and then change the row <meta content="text/html;charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> to <meta content="text/html;charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type"> --- How to download and install iconv: Download the file called libiconv-1.8.0-2003.02.01-1.exe and gettext-0.11.5-2003.02.01-1.exe from http://www.mingw.org/download.shtml#hdr1 and install them into the same directory, for example c:\\iconv In the bin dir of the installation, i.e. c:\\iconv\\bin you find iconv.exe (and some dlls it needs). J2ME, Java for mobile phones Is RAND not supported by SpreadsheetConverter for Java phones? You can make a simple random generator using NOW. Place =NOW() in A1 and =INT((A186400-INT(A186400))10) and you will get a "random" number between 0-9 Why are the cells only limited to column A? Mobile phone screens are very narrow and only one column fit into the screen SpreadsheetConverter doesn't find my J2ME emulator Make sure you install them at their default location. Power users can edit the file j2me_emulators.txt I need a general spreadsheet program for my J2ME mobile phone Please look at Microcalc. http://sourceforge.net/projects/microcalc/ http://mixa.dev.juga.ru/microcalc/mc_manual.html There is a newer version available called MC2 lisp-based J2ME spreadsheet http://mixaz.eatj.com/mc2/ Java Where does the calculation take place? The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server. Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version. Is there an option to connect the JSP version to a database, maybe integrate through some custom code written in Java ? You get the full source of the JSP-page and the JavaBeans. It is easy to add your specific code to the JSP-apge to save/read that data into a database or similar. If you want to see how the JSP-page and JavaBeans are structured, there is code at http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/websamples.htm Do you have any installation instructions for running on a Tomcat server. If you install Tomcat using the default paths, and set the paths as shown in the wizard - you have to move the cursor over the label so see the whole path - it works. You can test your Tomcat installation by opening up http://localhost:8080/examples/jsp Please try the examples included by tomcat and make sure that these works. Can the JavaBeans be saved into an Oracle database? Yes, but you will have to supply the plumbing to the database yourself, either 1. You just serialize the JavaBeans 2. Or you map each individual input cell to a database column. Tip: Name the cells in Excel, and those names will be used in the JavaBean. SpreadsheetConverter doesn't find my JDK. You can point to the JDK to use by setting JAVA_HOME. Set it so that JAVA_HOME + "\\bin\\javac.exe" exists http://wso2.org/project/wsas/java/1.1/docs/setting-java-home .html How can I use the generated JavaBeans? SpreadsheetConverter generates a JSP-page and a JavaBeans. In your case, you can just ignore the JSP-page and only use the JavaBeans. Each JavaBeans is totally self-contained and can be used as a subroutine. First call the setters, then the getters. The JavaBeans will recalculate automatically when the first getter is called. At http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/websamples.htm you can see the source code generated. Tip: Name the cells in Excel, and those names will be used in the JavaBean. One problem we find when integrating products like these are JAR file collisions, in particular common third party JARs. Do you have a list somewhere of what third party JARs (open source or commercial) that you use? Or are you doing this all through JNI and don't need extra JARs? Each JSP-page and JavaBean generated is independent from other generated pages. (So there is some code duplication, but it simplifies maintenance, versioning etc....). Only standard Java-classes are used. We do not do JNI, all code is pure Java. Apache Tomcat 5.5 and later complains about compilation errors when regenerating the web page The JVM running the tomcat server has already loaded the servlet's .class file and initialised the servlet object. It won't reload the .class file or restart the servlet automatically. One solution is to stop and then restart tomcat, so it will use the new .class file. Another solution is to use the manager application (see below) to issue a reload command for your web application. This will force tomcat to reload the new .class files without having to shutdown tomcat. For example: If your web application is called myapp and located in webapp/myapp, then using the following URL will use the manager to reload the application: http://localhost:8080/manager/reload?path=/myapp (Your server name and application name will be different.) For more information, see http://www.velocityreviews.com/forums/t140821-recompile-jsp- with-java-classes.html How can I collect the submitted data using Java? SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard HTML-form. You loop over the request parameters, either by looping over the parameters, or by using getParameter. Use getParameter method to get form element values For example, if you named cell A1 "firstname", you can access the first name using the formula request.getParameter("firstname") --- Reading data using a servlet http://www.nakov.com/inetjava/lectures/part-3-webapps/InetJa va-3.3-HTML-Forms-and-Parameters.html http://www.spreadsheet-converter.com:8080/servlets-examples/ http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=1297854 and from the book "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip --- Or directly inside a JSP-page. The advantage of using a JSP-page is that all you need is to copy the file to the server. Servlets may require changing a configuration file. <%@page import="java.util." %> <% String username, password; if(request.getParameter("firstname") == null) username = ""; else username = request.getParameter("firstname"); %> JavaScript Reference card for JavaScript Look at http://javascript-reference.info/ from Visibone, which has a lot of nice printed reference cards. http://www.visibone.com/ Licensing Can I remove the 'Powered by SpreadsheetConverter' logo? You are allowed to delete the logo. Easiest is to replace the poweredby-file with an empty 1x1 image. We need to find more customers in order to get the resources we need to improve the program and to keep the cost down. You help us a lot by keeping the logo with the link. When bought, are there no more licence-fee or whatever to pay? No. If I understand it correctly, I buy 1 licence, so I can use it ONLY for 1 website? If you have a Standard edition license, you may publish converted web pages on any number of web servers within your own organization. To publish converted web pages on external sites, you need a license for the Professional edition. Must I report to you on which site it is used? No, not yet. I would like to understand how you licence for servers with ASP and Java (cost; installation...)? We charge a small one-time license fee for each computer you install the program in. There are no extra fees per server, page or visitor. After reading the information on your website, I concluded that no run-time license is needed. Would you please confirm this fact? True. You do not need a run-time license for any current version. Things like this might change in later versions but we will not change it for the current versions. For example, we are thinking of having two version of the product, one to be used on a single site, and one for web developers who can publish the web pages on many sites. Can I install the software on more than one computer? If you are the only user of the two computers, you can request permission to install our software on both by sending an e-mail to sales@spreadsheetconverter.com. If I use your software for my customers web site, what is the least amount of acknowledgement, notification, logos, etc. that I have to provide regarding your company in order to comply with the EULA and license agreement? The only thing you need to keep is the Copyright statement in the HTML-source. This will never been seen by your customers unless they do view source in the web browser. Also, if you want to redistribute it, you will need to upgrade to the Pro edition once it is released. You are allowed to delete the logo. Linux Can we use this on our Linux website? Yes, SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript and SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP generates pages that can be hosted by Apache on Linux. I recommend you start with SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript, since they are plain web pages, nothing needs to be installed on your web server. Apple Macintosh and OSX Is Microsoft Excel on Macintosh supported? We currently do not support Macintosh Excel for creating web pages, but of course Mac users can use the resulting web pages. We regularly test on Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox for Mac. Can a web page created with SpreadsheetConverter be published on a Mac? Yes. Is SpreadsheetConverter supported in Mac OS - X or 9.2 enviornment? The generated pages works on Mac OS, both on IE and Safari. Excel on Mac OS is not supported. We have customers who use Windows Excel inside an emulator. We have no immediate plans to support Mac OS. VBA and macros Does SpreadsheetConverter support macros, VBA, or custom functions? SpreadsheetConverter does not support macros and VBA. Custom functions are supported. Please contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information. Multi-sheet spreadsheets Will SpreadsheetConverter convert all sheets in a multiple sheet workbook? SpreadsheetConverter always converts all sheets and include all necessary parts into the web page. However, you do not need to show all sheets to the user. You can select to show the selected sheet, the selected sheets or all sheets. I would like to put all of the worksheets in a workbook onto tabs, just as it appears in Excel You will get tabs if you choose to show more than one worksheet. Does SpreadsheetConverter support references to other workbooks? SpreadsheetConverter supports references between worksheets within a workbook, but not off-book references. Does your product convert Excel files with multiple (linked) sheets inside? -- also including formulas, etc? It converts the whole workbook including all worksheets and links between worksheets. Does SpreadsheetConverter support conversion of spreadsheets where the main worksheet refers to data in other worksheets? Yes, all relevant formulas and tables will be used, regardless on which workssheet they are. I want people to see the second and 17th sheet (which is not the last) of the workbook. Is this possible? Yes. Naming of cells and fields I try to name a cell Z210 but the name doesn't stick. I am sorry, Z210 is not a legal name since Excel thinks it is column Z row 210. You can use Z210x. Can I change the label names on the HTML form without corrupting the calculating formula? You cannot change the id or name directly on the web page. They are used in the calculation part. But there is a solution: If you name the cells in Excel using Insert-Name-Define, and these names start with a letter, and only contains letters, digits and _, then these names will be used in the form. Can I name ranges of cells? Yes, but SpreadsheetConverter will not use them in the email with the submitted data. You have to name each individual cells. I need to name the cells with item id. Is there a quick way of doing that? This little macro will name the cell according to its contents. A simple use is to fill the input cells with the article number (with an additional leading letter), mark the range, and run the function. 'make a name out of each text in the cell and remove the cell 'illegal chars are replaced by underscore Sub MakeNamesFromSelection() Dim theCell As Range For Each theCell In Selection Dim sValue As String sValue = theCell.Value2 sValue = Replace(sValue, "-", "_") 'todo: many more! sValue = Replace(sValue, "/", "_") 'todo: many more! If sValue <> "" Then ActiveWorkbook.Names.Add Name:=sValue, RefersToR1C1:=theCell End If theCell.Clear Next End Sub Replace requires Excel 2000 or later. Is there any way I can control the Name attribute of an input field? Name the cells in Excel using the little box up to the left. The name must start with a letter. The rest can be letter, digit and _. These names will be used as id. Offline How can I distribute my web pages? Best is to zip them before emailing them. If you want to have a more professional installer, you can use Iexpress tool that is one of those undocumented components of Windows XP. Look in your XP windows\\system32 directory and double click on iexpress.exe. It will guide you through the process. Can I convert the HTML pages to a executable? Yes, use an HTML to EXE converter. There are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion which also works very well. Ordering of software, payments Can I get a full version of SpreadsheetConverter? You can download a free evaluation version of SpreadsheetConverter to try it out. This is a size-limited demo that you can use to evaluate all of SpreadsheetConverter's features and performance. If you need to test a full spreadsheet, you can send us the spreadsheet and we will convert it for you. We can also send you a trial key that removes the size restrictions of the free trial. What support does SpreadsheetConverter come with? SpreadsheetConverter comes with 6 month of free e-mail support from our tech support. What can Java/JSP or ASP & ASP.NET handle that the HTML version can't? I may want to upgrade. They essentially do the same as the HTML-version, but do the calculation on the server instead of in the client. The most common reasons to use the ASP or JSP-solutions are: 1. I want to keep my formulas totally secret. The server versions does all the calculation on the server. 2. The recalculation is too slow. The server is faster than JavaScript in the browser 3. I am a developer of ASP or JSP-pages, and I use SpreadsheetConverter to create the initial pages. I then add database-connectivity etc... 4. I am a Java-developer and have created a normal Java-program, and I need to do some calculations in that program, for example mortgage calculations. You can upgrade your SpreadsheetConverter for HTML license to either SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET or SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP. Contact sales for more information about upgrade options. There is the standard 30 days full refund on the upgrade. Just send me an email, and you will get your money back. If you want both versions, please contact sales. If I want SpreadsheetConverter for Java and SpreadsheetConverter for HTML, do I have to pay two separate licenses? SpreadsheetConverter for HTML is part of SpreadsheetConverter for Java. If you select "Pure HTML" in the Java-version, it is actually SpreadsheetConverter for HTML you are running. Is there an US-based reseller? We let REGNOW handle our ordering: RegNow/Digital River 9625 West 76th Street Eden Prairie, MN 55344 United States of America Purchase using this link: https://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?items=9059-1,9059-2,9059-3 For small orders, we only support credit cards and Paypal. Order over $500 can also be billed directly from us and paid using bank transfer (IBAN). If you want the 30 day full refund, you need to use a credit card or PayPal. I do not want to order using a creditcard. There are other payment options, however both REGNOW and SWREG charge extra for these. Also, the 30 day money back guarantee only applies if you use a creditcard. If I need to rebuild my developing station, how can I recover a license to reinstall your product ? If you lost your license code, contact us and we will resend the license code. Could you tell me the difference between: SpreadsheetConverter to HTML, SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP, and SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET The HTML version is included in the other versions. Unless you know how to program Java or ASP, you should only buy the Java or ASP versions if you need to keep your formulas totally secure. An experienced programmer can reconstruct your formulas if you use the HTML-version. I recommend that you start with the HTML-version. You can later upgrade and only pay the difference. I just ordered SpreadsheetConverter. When should I expect to receive the program? The only thing you get is the license key. You download the program from http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm install it, and enter the license key in the first page of the wizard. You should have got the license key with the configrmation email. Please contact sales if you haven't gotten the key within a few hours. Other programs I don’t have Excel, can I use another spreadsheet like Microsoft Works or Gnumeric? No, only Microsoft Excel 97, Microsoft Excel 2000 and Microsoft Excel XP on Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, 2003 and Excel 2007 are supported for creating the web pages. The web pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter can of course be used on many more platforms. If you use Excel 97 and/or Windows 98 or ME, you need to use SpreadsheetConverter version 2. Is Microsoft Excel on Macintosh supported? We currently do not support Macintosh Excel for creating web pages, but of course Mac users can use the resulting web pages. We regularly test on Apple Safari and Mozilla Firefox for Mac. When I try to publish my calclulators to Yahoo! SiteBuilder it rejects the file. It seems that Yahoo Sitebuilder doesn't allow arbitrary HTML-files. Workaround: publish the SpreadsheetConverter generated web page to another site and link to it from Yahoo! SiteBuilder. Eudora on Macintosh doesn't show the HTML-email from the advanced service. You have to use another email program, for example Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail. I want to convert my spreadsheet to HTML and then somehow copy and paste to the PowerPoint. I would like to use some of my models in the PowerPoint presentation Just insert-web page will not work. I found this on the internet: http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00143.htm http://www.mvps.org/skp/liveweb.htm Does your software work with the Lotus format? SpreadsheetConverter needs MS Excel. You will have to open the Lotus documents using Excel and convert then convert them. I am looking for a program like yours except one that compiles spreadsheets into an application. Years ago there was a product called Visual Baler that compiled Lotus 123 spreadsheet into an exe file. The company has since gone bankrupt after attempting to create a windows version. Do you plan to do something like this is in the future? We are looking into that. Since web-based and standard applications more and more being built with similar technology. We will probably be able to help you in the future. A simple solution is to use an HTML to EXE converter, for example there are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion. Can I convert the HTML pages to a executable? Yes, use an HTML to EXE converter. There are SpreadsheetConverter customers using http://www.htmlexe.com/ for the .exe conversion which also works very well. Performance What a typical download time for a web page created using SpreadsheetConverter? We have put a lot of effort into making sure that the web pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter are small in size, perform fast calculations, and use as little memory as possible. This provides the end-users with quick download times and good interactivity. A web page, created from a spreadsheet with 5-10 input cells and 5-10 calculated values, will be between 8-20 Kb in size and will be downloaded by a modem user within a few seconds. For a user with a broadband connection, the same web page will be downloaded instantly. That means that within seconds, the end-user sitting at his browser can start using your spreadsheet calculations. How fast is recalculation in SpreadsheetConverter? Our investigations show that typically you can have up to 200 input cells and 200 calculated values, and the recalculation will be instant. That means that it isn’t the recalculation that is the bottleneck, but instead how to present all of this information to the end-user in a single web page. 200 + 200 is of course an average value, it depends on the complexity of the formulas and the built-in functions that are used. Also, rendering speed (the time it takes to draw an HTML-page in the browser window) and the speed of JavaScript differs a lot between different browsers. (These timings were done 2002) How can I improve recalculation speed? The solution is to reduce the number of calculated values shown on the web page. Very often 80% of the time is spent updating the values the user sees on the web page, and only 20% is spent on the actual calculations. By hiding large parts of the spreadsheet, these values will not be visible on the web page and no time is wasted on updating them. Even if you hide cells, the calculations in them will be used if they are needed for the values visible on the web page. Why does SpreadsheetConverter recalculate as soon as I press tab? Since recalculations are almost instant, we would like to give as much feedback to the end-user as possible. Version 2: If you do not want automatic recalculation, just remove “checked” from the checkbox called ‘automatic_recalc’ in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard. Version 3 and 4: Set Automatic Recalculation to disable in the wizard. Is SpreadsheetConverter scalable? Our site has hundreds of simultaneous visitors? SpreadsheetConverter is as scalable as any static HTML-page. That means that if your current web server can support hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users, SpreadsheetConverter will also be as scalable. SpreadsheetConverter does all calculations on the client, the server is not involved. Once the web page is downloaded, the server is not needed. A web page created with SpreadsheetConverter is typically only 15-25 Kbytes, i.e. the same size of any HTML-page. Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component? No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers. There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page. Does SpreadsheetConverter support full row/column syntax such as A:A or 8:8? Yes, but is not recommended. Internal arrays will get unnecessary large and the conversion takes longer time. How big spreadsheet can SpreadsheetConverter convert? We do not recommend more than 40,000 active cells. After that the generated code gets rather large and slow. How can I speed up recalculation? A few tips: LOOKUP-operations should always work with ordered search Make the ranges as small as possible, A1:A100 is better then A1:A1000, and A:A is worst Make your lookup ranges only contain numbers if possible, use #N/A or 0 for error entries, not strings like 'Error' Have as few in and out-fields as possible. The fields takes long time to update Speed differs a lot between browsers, IE6 is the fastest and IE4 and NS4 are the slowest. We are optimizing the code generated in the next versions, so one alternative is to start with ASP, and retest the speed again in a few months and maybe switch to HTML. How do I enable compression on Apache? By enabling compression, the amount of data you download will be 1/10. All modern browser support compression. http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/index.htm Why is ordered lookup much faster? When you have the range ordered, looking through 800 rows only requires 10 comparations (since 210 = 1024 which is larger than 800). The technique used is called binary search. If you do sequential search, you have to make 400 comparations in average (800/2=400). Thus, for larger tables, ordered lookup will be 100 times faster. Are server-based calculations like ASP.NET or Java faster than client-based calculations like HTML or Flash? Server-based calculations used to be faster, however since 2010, modern browsers like Firefox 3, Google Chrome, Apple Safari are as fast. Older browsers like IE7 and IE8 are much slower in processing JavaScript, however, with IE9, Microsoft has at last delivered a competitive browser. IE9 will be released spring-2011. If you know your users are using a modern browser, you can select "Automatic recalculation" in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard to do a recalculation after each field. It takes long time to download and show my web page? If the loading is the slow part, there is not much SpreadsheetConverter can do before the page is loaded. You however can configure your webserver to compress the data, this is both supported by IIS and Apache and by all modern browsers. It will reduce the amount of data sent to one 5th. (I do not understand why this isn't the standard, since it is automatically disabled when the browser is old. And network is much more important and expensive than a cpu-cycle. The compression method is either deflate or gzip.) Read more at http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/50/Articles/EnablingHTT PCompression.html IIS 6: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/WindowsServ /2003/standard/proddocs/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/WindowsServ/2003/standard/proddocs/en-us/qos_utilbandwdth.asp http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/iis/6/all/p roddocs/en-us/comp_cust.mspx IIS 5: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv /technologies/iis/maintain/featusability/httpcomp.mspx Apache: http://www.schroepl.net/projekte/mod_gzip/index.htm How can I improve conversion speed and recalculation speed? We say that the limit is about 10000-40000 cells for the Pro Ed. However, as some have noticed, it works for even larger workbooks. However, the conversion takes time and the pages get very big. The most important thing you can do if you convert very large workbooks it to make sure that you do not mix numbers and text in calculations. There are 2 common sources: 1. Do not include the header in the ranges used by lookup-operations like VLOOKUP. Since the header is text, but often the values are numbers. So if the date in the table starts on row 2, and row 1 is the header, refer to A2:B200. 2. do not have formulas like =IF(A1=0,"",A110). Just have A110 or =IF(A1=0,0,A110) [Often I just replace "" by 0 in all cells.] 3. Always make lookup ranges as small as possible. Do not use A:A, use A2:A200. Do not include blank lines in lookup ranges. If you have big vlookups, make sure that the data is ordered. Then, lookup will go much faster. 4. Reduce the size of the user interface, ask the user less, show the user less. Show as few worksheets as possible, showing a value takes much more resources than just calculting it as an intermediate value. 5. For each sheet, press Ctrl- End, hide columns ABOVE and to the LEFT of this position that you do not want the user to see. Do not hide all the way down to IV65536 (or XFD1048576) 6. Instead of deep nested IF, use VLOOKUP or similar Step 1-4 above also affects recalculation speed. PHP Is there a way to send the results from submit to a PHP MySQL Table? SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard webform. When the user presses submit, the data is posted to a web page of your choice. You will have to create a simple PHP-page that parse the parameters and creates an sql-insert statement and runs it towards your database. This type of code is very simple and part of standard PHP-books. For example see http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/php/6 and how to store into a mySQL database, see here http://www.timestretch.com/php_intro/?page=php_intro At the last link, they have combined the HTML-form and the PHP-file into one file. This is not necessary. First have the HTML-page and only make sure the action points at your PHP-page that extracts the data and stores it into a database. How do I pre-populate input fields with data retrieved from a database? There are several solution. For example, you can send them over an URL with the syntax http://www.foo.com/calc.htm?bar=56 will set the field call bar to 56. You name cells in Excel. This assumes that you are prefilling an input cell. Here is a better solution that can be used to set any value. If you know ASP, the simplest solution is to take the HTML page, make it into a ASP-page over replace statements like p1A1 = 1234 with p1A1 = <%= reference to variable which contains the value for cell A1 on sheet 1 %> where 1234 is the default value that you set in Excel and which you want to read from the database instead. This solution also works for PHP. If you want to set constants, see <a href="http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/in itialize-values-on-server/Default.htm">How to initialize values on the server</a> I want PHP to save the resulting order configuration to MySQL using PHP. SpreadsheetConverter creates a standard webform, you can either convert it into an php-file or just set the action of the post to php-script that takes all the parameters and saves them into a database. If you name the input cells and calculated cells in Excel, then these names will be used in the web form. I use PHP to receive the submitted data, but it cannot handle Unicode UTF-8. After reading http://us2.php.net/mbstring it seems that if you want PHP to handle UTF-8, some work is required. An alternative is to let SpreadsheetConverter generate an UTF-8 file and then convert it into a suitable encoding. You find iconv.exe in the directory where SpreadsheetConverter is installed. iconv.exe -t windows-1252 -f utf-8 old.htm > new.htm and then change the row <meta content="text/html;charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> to <meta content="text/html;charset=windows-1252" http-equiv="Content-Type"> How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically? If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following: How to initialize values on the server Pictures, images, clip-art I want to convert the flyers I created in Excel. They have photos in them. Will your program support photos? Yes, photos, images, clip-art and pictures are handled. My image or clipart has a grey background. When you insert a clipart, you might get a grey background. Solution: 1. Right-click on the image and select Format picture 2. Select Colors and Lines tab 3. Change Fill-color to Automatic (or you background color) from 'No fill' Presale questions What is the difference between SpreadsheetConverter and Excel's "save as HTML"? Excel's own "save as HTML" exists in two versions, either you choose to create a non-interactive web page, and then Excel creates a static formatted table with all the values you see in Excel. The values cannot be changed. If you instead select to save your spreadsheet as an interactive page, you will be able to change the contents of the cells, and the values will be recalculated. Microsoft does this by using a large ActiveX-component (2MB in size), which your users are only allowed to use if they own MS Office. SpreadsheetConverter creates an interactive web page using JavaScript to do the calculations. The advantages of using web pages produced by SpreadsheetConverter are that they can be run on any browser, on any OS, and without any licenses. Can all spreadsheets be converted into a web page? No. Our experience is that 90% of the spreadsheets can be converted without any changes. More than 95% of the spreadsheets using supported functions can be converted after only minor changes. Will SpreadsheetConverter convert all sheets in a multiple sheet workbook? SpreadsheetConverter always converts all sheets and include all necessary parts into the web page. However, you do not need to show all sheets to the user. You can select to show the selected sheet, the selected sheets or all sheets. Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component? No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers. There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page. What level of expertise is required to use SpreadsheetConverter? If you are familiar with basic software such as MS Word and Excel then you have the required skill set. What are my gains if I'm a seasoned professional? With SpreadsheetConverter you have the ability to create applications with incredible speed. And you can still add your personal touch by editing the generate web pages. Basically your application will recalculate fields on the screen? Is this correct? Yes. What can Java/JSP or ASP & ASP.NET handle that the HTML version can't? I may want to upgrade. They essentially do the same as the HTML-version, but do the calculation on the server instead of in the client. The most common reasons to use the ASP or JSP-solutions are: 1. I want to keep my formulas totally secret. The server versions does all the calculation on the server. 2. The recalculation is too slow. The server is faster than JavaScript in the browser 3. I am a developer of ASP or JSP-pages, and I use SpreadsheetConverter to create the initial pages. I then add database-connectivity etc... 4. I am a Java-developer and have created a normal Java-program, and I need to do some calculations in that program, for example mortgage calculations. You can upgrade your SpreadsheetConverter for HTML license to either SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET or SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP. Contact sales for more information about upgrade options. There is the standard 30 days full refund on the upgrade. Just send me an email, and you will get your money back. If you want both versions, please contact sales. I'm looking for a browser-based application that can upload an excel file and populate an html table that is online. Can SpreadsheetConverter do this? No. If the web page is static, auto-republishing in MS Excel might work for you. I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web. SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution: The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save spreadsheets using any browser. You can share a spreadsheet online and the users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a relational database. The data can be filtered, consolidated and accessed through reports and as Excel spreadsheets. Spreadsheets or single worksheets can be protected by password. It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc. You can read more at http://www.spreadsheetserver.com We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009. Does SpreadsheetConverter support conversion of spreadsheets where the main worksheet refers to data in other worksheets? Yes, all relevant formulas and tables will be used, regardless on which workssheet they are. I am interested in your product but need to know what your product does better than Excel's own "save as web page" built-in utility. Save as web page in Excel can be done in two different ways: 1. static page 2. interactive page When you save as static page, only the current contents of the cells are used, and you cannot change any values and by that trigger any recalculations. When you save as interactive page, the resulting web page will use an ActiveX-component that will handle the recalculations. The page looks exactly as in Excel, and all people who wants to view the page needs to install the ActiveX-component from either their Office-CDs or from Microsofts website (the component is about 2 MB big). You are only allowed to use the ActiveX-component if you have an Office-license. However, most SpreadsheetConverter customers do not buy our software in order to create static pages. The use it to create interactive pages. Typical examples of interactive pages are different kinds of calculators, for example engineering, tuition fees, return-of-investment calculations, or for creating order pages with builtin summation and postage fees. SpreadsheetConverter makes it possible to publish spreadsheets on the internet so that anyone can use them as long as they have access to a browser, no extra add-ins are needed. It is also easy to improve the layout of the resulting web page using tools like MS Frontpage or Macromedia Dreamweaver. It is very easy to mix the calculator with other graphical components like pictures and similar. Is the converted html document able to be edited in FrontPage? Yes. How do I protect certain cells so that entries cannot be made to them? The user can only edit input cells. All other cells and formulas are automatically protected on the web page. Does SpreadsheetConverter support lookup-functions? Yes. Where does the calculation take place? The HTML-version calculates on the user's PC, the ASP and JSP version calculates on the server. Thus, the user get the results instantly in the HTML-version. Could you tell me the difference between: SpreadsheetConverter to HTML, SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP, and SpreadsheetConverter for ASP and ASP.NET The HTML version is included in the other versions. Unless you know how to program Java or ASP, you should only buy the Java or ASP versions if you need to keep your formulas totally secure. An experienced programmer can reconstruct your formulas if you use the HTML-version. I recommend that you start with the HTML-version. You can later upgrade and only pay the difference. Can the client access these converted calculators without the need to be on-line? Yes, the web page is self-contained and can be run from the harddisk or the CD. It is our intention to make the spreadsheet a chargeable product and therefore we want to protect the work by disableing the ability to save to a local machine. Use the ASP or JSP-solution. Does the SpreadsheetConverter support hidden rows? There are many rows used for internal calculation steps, containing data that should not be seen by the user. The rows will be hidden on the web page. If the contents is referenced by formulas, they will be part of the resulting web page (not visible for the user). Columns and sheets can be hidden too. Can we use this on our Linux website? Yes, SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript and SpreadsheetConverter to Java/JSP generates pages that can be hosted by Apache on Linux. I recommend you start with SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript, since they are plain web pages, nothing needs to be installed on your web server. Does the user have to have Excel on their pc? No. Can SpreadsheetConverter be used to convert an Excel spreadsheet and place it in a blog, i.e. WordPress, Blogger or TypePad? Can your calculators and forms be used also with Content Management Systems like the Drupal or Joomla CMS? Some content management systems can only import "dumb" objects like images, but not scripted objects like our calculators. We have documented the best procedure for each tool. Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Blogger Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Drupal Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Google Sites Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Joomla Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Squarespace Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in TypePad Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in WordPress Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in any blog or website In most cases you can also upload the calculator to another web server and use it in your CMS or blog with an iframe or an iframe plug-in. Printing The web page is a little wider than the Excel page The width of the tables created by SpreadsheetConverter are only approximate. Browsers will do some reformatting when it shows the page. In Excel one of my spreadsheets fits onto A4 height, but when I convert with either HTML or ASP, the converted sheet is longer than A4. This is a problem because I want users to be able to print out one of the sheets. Unless you set layout=fixed, the rows will be higher on the web page than in Excel. However layout=fixed will make the web pages look cramped, it is better to let the web pages become higher. When I print, the cell colors are missing. It is a web browser issue. Some browser print the background color, some don't. For some versions, it is a setting that enables background color printing. The reason for this is to reduce the amount of ink spent when printing. Is there any code I can add to force the print button to print this page in landscape mode? No, there is no way for a webpage to make it print in landscape mode. In the future, there might be, at least this is a suggestion in future HTML-standards (CSS3), but current browser up to IE7 do not support it. When printed, the web page is printed in half size. The problem is that you have white invisible colums to the right, and this together with "shrink-to-fit" when printing, gives this result. Solution: Open the worksheet, press Ctrl-End and see in which colunm you end up. Assuming you end up in column Z, but you only want the user to see column A to H, select column H to Z and hide these. Background colors and images don't print in IE 8 When you select the option to print background colors and images in IE 8, in Tools \| Internet Options \| Advanced tab, you might find that the background colors and images still don't print when you send the page to your printer, because the setting isn't adjusted in the Page Setup options. There is a workaround that you can use to ensure that the setting is correct. You'll find it in KB article 974128 at http://www.win7news.net/2VVFPU/110429-Print-Background-Color s Recalculation Why does SpreadsheetConverter recalculate as soon as I press tab? Since recalculations are almost instant, we would like to give as much feedback to the end-user as possible. Version 2: If you do not want automatic recalculation, just remove “checked” from the checkbox called ‘automatic_recalc’ in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard. Version 3 and 4: Set Automatic Recalculation to disable in the wizard. References to other sheets and workbooks Does SpreadsheetConverter support references to other workbooks? SpreadsheetConverter supports references between worksheets within a workbook, but not off-book references. How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically? If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following: How to initialize values on the server My workbook contains links to other web page, for example elememts.htm, after conversion, they do not work SpreadsheetConverter always generates a folder where all the files for a specific spreadsheet is stored. You have to edit the generated page. Depending on where you place the element.htm, replace elements.htm by ../elements.htm Requirements Does SpreadsheetConverter use a Java Applet or an ActiveX-component? No, SpreadsheetConverter only uses the JavaScript-engine that is included in all modern browsers. There is nothing to download for the browser except a standard web page. I don't have the ability to run programs on the server. It is owned by someone else. You can use SpreadsheetConverter for HTML. It is just a plain web page, and it doesn't get smart until it is shown in a browser. Does the version 3 and later versions support Windows 98 or Windows ME? No, version 3 will not suppport Win98 and ME. If you need to use Win98, you will have to continue to use version 2. You find version 2 at the bottom of the download page. Version 4 requires Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista or later. Also, Windows Server versions are also supported by version 4. Does the version 3 support Excel 95 or Excel 97? No, version 3 will not suppport Excel 95 or 97. If you need to use Excel 97, you will have to continue to use version 2. Save Can I save the web page as an Excel workbook? No, there is no direct saving functionality in the resulting web page. However, since all of the fields are contained within a HTML-form, you can submit the form to a web server and store all of the field values in a file on the web server. If you do not want to build this solution yourself, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML has built-in submit support, called the Advanced Service. Another alternative is to use a web server enabled with the FrontPage server extensions, all fields will be stored into a tab-separated file on the server. Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to persist state? Not out of the box. Since SpreadsheetConverter is run inside the browser it is forbidden to store any data on the user's harddisk. You can persist the data by handling it on your web server using ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP. I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web. SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution: The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save spreadsheets using any browser. You can share a spreadsheet online and the users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a relational database. The data can be filtered, consolidated and accessed through reports and as Excel spreadsheets. Spreadsheets or single worksheets can be protected by password. It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc. You can read more at http://www.spreadsheetserver.com We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009. I want PHP to save the resulting order configuration to MySQL using PHP. SpreadsheetConverter creates a standard webform, you can either convert it into an php-file or just set the action of the post to php-script that takes all the parameters and saves them into a database. If you name the input cells and calculated cells in Excel, then these names will be used in the web form. Can I use SpreadsheetConverter as a database? SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data. If you wish to create a form - where data is entered and where additional data can be entered during a subsequent visit, picking up where you left off last time - you need an online database. The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save forms created from spreadsheets using any browser. You can share the form online and your users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a database. The data can be auto-filtered online, just as in Excel. All data including formulas can be downloaded into Excel. Advanced authentification decides what data a user is allowed to see, edit and download. It is intended for online databases and applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc. We are currently not selling SpreadsheetServer but a new version will be released for sale in 2009. More information, demos, pricing etc at http://www.spreadsheetserver.com Scalablility Is SpreadsheetConverter scalable? Our site has hundreds of simultaneous visitors? SpreadsheetConverter is as scalable as any static HTML-page. That means that if your current web server can support hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users, SpreadsheetConverter will also be as scalable. SpreadsheetConverter does all calculations on the client, the server is not involved. Once the web page is downloaded, the server is not needed. A web page created with SpreadsheetConverter is typically only 15-25 Kbytes, i.e. the same size of any HTML-page. Protect content How secure is SpreadsheetConverter for HTML, can anyone see my formulas? Since the formulas are converted into JavaScript and the JavaScript formulas are in plain text on the web page, anyone who selects ‘View Source’ in the browser can see the resulting JavaScript. In a couple of hours, a person knowledgeable in JavaScript will be able to reverse-engineer the original spreadsheet. Therefore, if you need to keep the formulas secret, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML is not for you. The products SpreadsheetConverter for Java/JSP and SpreadsheetConverter for ASP&ASP.NET solves this problem, since the formulas will never leave the web server. Microsoft has a solution that only works for Internet Explorer called Script Encoder. The solution is not totally secure, but makes reverse engineering much more difficult. It is a simple command-line tool that enables script designers to encode their final script so that Web hosts and Web clients cannot view or modify their source. More information about the Script Encoder can be found here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/e n-us/script56/html/SeconScriptEncoderOverview.asp There are also other solutions out there, for example WebLockPro.com, which claims to encrypt the web page. Here you can read how to circumvent some of them: http://www.vortex-webdesign.com/help/hidesource.htm However, do not believe that your Excel spreadsheet is secure. There are a lot of hacks out there that removes the protection and passwords. Does SpreadsheetConverter allow me to change cell formulas at runtime? No, SpreadsheetConverter protects formulas from change. How can I secure my SpreadsheetConverter calculator? Place it on an HTTPS:-site and password protect it. How to password protect depends on which type of webserver you are using. I do not want someone to have the ability to copy my program/code and post my intellectual property on another website. Then you should use the ASP or JSP-solution. The formulas will never leave the web server. Is it possible to have the web page password protected? Password protection is handled by the web server. For example if you use a Microsoft web server, you will create a separate directory for all password protected files. Then configure this directory to use passwords. How do I protect certain cells so that entries cannot be made to them? The user can only edit input cells. All other cells and formulas are automatically protected on the web page. It is our intention to make the spreadsheet a chargeable product and therefore we want to protect the work by disableing the ability to save to a local machine. Use the ASP or JSP-solution. I want users to be able to modify only certain ranges within a sheet. I can do this in Excel under Tools / Protection / Allow users to edit ranges. Will your application support this type of protection? The user will never be able to edit the formulas on the web page, so this protection is always there. How make users login before using my calculator? If you are using SpreadsheetConverter/ExcelEverywhere to HTML and want your users to login before they can use the calculator, the solution is to use the authentification of the web server to handle this. Both Internet Information Server (IIS) and Apache handles this. If you use IIS, you can create normal Windows users and deny guest access to your web server. If you use Apache, here is an article describing it: Protect Web sites with Apache Server's HTTP authentication system. Alternatively, you can program the authentification yourself. Secure your Web pages with custom authentication Or, you can use ASP.NET's form authentification. A simple solution is to store name + password in web.config. ASP.NET Form Authenticiation tutorial The SpreadsheetServer also handles logins. Is the JavaScript encrypted? No, we only have removed the new lines. If you want to make it easier to view the source, all you need to do is replace ";" by ";" followed by a new line. I have IIS web server and ASP.NET has authentification. Can I use this to password protect the pages generated by SpreadsheetConverter to HTML/JavaScript? Yes. Change the extension from .htm to .aspx. Then, you should be able to use ASP.NET authentification system. Service for handling submit I requested a receiver code but I did not get an email with the codes. If you entered the email address correctly - you can try a second time - then most likely AOL has decided that the email with the receiver code is spam and has deleted it. You have to try another email address. What if I want a customer to receive a copy of what they submitted? How do I get the submitted data to come to me and them? This will be part of the advanced service, not is not yet implemented (Oct-2008) In order to prevent spammers to use your form to send spam to arbitrary email addresses, we have to make sure that there a human who submitted the form. Before sending the copy to the submitter, he/she will have to enter a security code similar to the code at https://secure.overture.com/s/dtc/center/?mkt=us Eudora on Macintosh doesn't show the HTML-email from the advanced service. You have to use another email program, for example Outlook, Outlook Express, Mozilla Mail. Suppose I survey 2000 students. I get 2000 e-mails. Do you have a macro or quick way to get the results back into a spreadsheet? That functionality is part of our advanced service. The cost is $15/month. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/hosting/advanced-submit- service.htm An alternative is to configure your own webserver, for example Frontpage extension can collect submitted data into a CSV-file, which easily is opened by Excel. I have sent some htlm files to a few people. When they open them they are opening them in their email page. How can I make this stop happening? Instead of attaching the HTML-files, attach the ZIP-file that SpreadsheetConverter generates. This will solve your problem and make the email much smaller. Then you have to tell the user to open the zip file, extract the files and click on the HTM-file. How do I apply for the advance service? Request a receiver code and check the advanced service. The receiver code for the free service and the advanced service is the same. If you decide to continue to use it, and want to enable the full Advanced Service, contact sales@spreadsheetconverter.com I want to create several forms that use your email submit service and I want to use different email addresses? There are two solutions: Request one common receiver code and create a filter in Outlook, Exchange or ... that forwards the email to the correct email address by looking at the subject. Request one receiver code each and make sure that the correct receiver code is entered in the 'configure submit' dialog when you generate the web page. Why do I get an email with fields with names lie p2C144? If you name the cells in Excel, those names will be used instead of p2C144 I want the submits go to another email address. Request a new receiver code for the new email address and enter it into SpreadsheetConverter wizard. Regenerate the web page and make sure "Free Service" or "Advanced Service is checked". Then, publish the updated web page. I do not get the emails If you haven't requested a receiver code, you need to do that too and enter it into the wizard. Regenerate the web page and make sure "Free Service" or "Advanced Service is checked". Publish the updated web page. If you still do not get the emails, please check your spam filters. Normally, you have to spam filters, one local in your computer, and one in the email server. If it still doesn't work, you need to use another email address in a different domain. How can I download all submitted data into Excel or a database? If you use our Advanced Service, our server will store all submits and you can download them as a Excel table. Login to http://tinyurl.com/yjzbyz with user=demo, password=demo and press "Save as Excel" You can customize the column headers. It costs $153/year or $15/month (October - 2008) How would you go about setting up different Forms with different email addresses for Submit? Example - Some forms would go top Bob is shipping, another to Sally in accounting and yet another to Harry in IT. Is there a way to change the email addresses locally? You need to request one receiver code for each email address, and then have that receiver code entered in the wizard when you generate the form. Share spreadsheet online I need to convert an Excel spreadsheet and allow users to update it over the web. SpreadsheetConverter can only calculate and collect data, not show previously saved data. It seems to me that you need some kind of online database. We have created such a solution: The turn-key solution called SpreadsheetServer will let you view, edit and save spreadsheets using any browser. You can share a spreadsheet online and the users do not need Excel at all. All data will be stored in a relational database. The data can be filtered, consolidated and accessed through reports and as Excel spreadsheets. Spreadsheets or single worksheets can be protected by password. It is intended for applications like custom-made time-reporting, expense reporting, task lists, calendars schedules etc. You can read more at http://www.spreadsheetserver.com We are not selling SpreadsheetServer at this time but a new version will be released for sale in 2009. Submit Can I save the web page as an Excel workbook? No, there is no direct saving functionality in the resulting web page. However, since all of the fields are contained within a HTML-form, you can submit the form to a web server and store all of the field values in a file on the web server. If you do not want to build this solution yourself, SpreadsheetConverter for HTML has built-in submit support, called the Advanced Service. Another alternative is to use a web server enabled with the FrontPage server extensions, all fields will be stored into a tab-separated file on the server. I do not want to use FrontPage server extension, any alternatives? You can use our free or advanced service. If your web server supports Perl, formmail.pl is an alternative. See http://www.formmail.com/ If you use a Windows server, look at formmail.asp http://www.sortedsites.com/software/formmail.asp or if you prefer ASP.NET http://notebook.arkane-systems.net/index.php/Formmail_in_ASP .NET If you use PHP, here are some http://www.dtheatre.com/scripts/formmail.php http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/29699.html For Java, see http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/21178.html http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/6177.html and "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip I requested a receiver code but I did not get an email with the codes. If you entered the email address correctly - you can try a second time - then most likely AOL has decided that the email with the receiver code is spam and has deleted it. You have to try another email address. How do I create a submit form so that the form information goes to an email? You can read about our submit support here http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/excel_form_submit_email. htm Then, you create a form using Excel, start SpreadsheetConverter and select 'Submit'-button under 'Configure toolbar'. The first time you add a submit button, you will have to request a receiver code, so that we know where to send the email. The relevant section in the manual is found here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/manual/SpreadsheetConver ter%20Users%20Guide.htm#dialog_toolbar Why do I get an email with fields with names lie p2C144? If you name the cells in Excel, those names will be used instead of p2C144 Is there any way I can control the Name attribute of an input field? Name the cells in Excel using the little box up to the left. The name must start with a letter. The rest can be letter, digit and _. These names will be used as id. How can I collect the submitted data using Java? SpreadsheetConverter generates a standard HTML-form. You loop over the request parameters, either by looping over the parameters, or by using getParameter. Use getParameter method to get form element values For example, if you named cell A1 "firstname", you can access the first name using the formula request.getParameter("firstname") --- Reading data using a servlet http://www.nakov.com/inetjava/lectures/part-3-webapps/InetJa va-3.3-HTML-Forms-and-Parameters.html http://www.spreadsheet-converter.com:8080/servlets-examples/ http://www.jguru.com/faq/view.jsp?EID=1297854 and from the book "Java Servlets Developer's Guide" published by McGraw-Hill/Osborne Media Group http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaDownload/HTMLFormsFromBookJav aServletsDevelopersGuide.zip --- Or directly inside a JSP-page. The advantage of using a JSP-page is that all you need is to copy the file to the server. Servlets may require changing a configuration file. <%@page import="java.util." %> <% String username, password; if(request.getParameter("firstname") == null) username = ""; else username = request.getParameter("firstname"); %> The email with submitted data names the fields like p1A3, p1D3, p1E3 The email looks like this: p1A3: 5 p1D3: 9,50 p1E3: 47,50 If you name the individual cells in Excel, these names will be used as names. Note that they must start with a letter, and only contain letters, digits and "_". Also note that the Advanced Service sends you a snapshot of the whole form as it looked to the user. How can I download all submitted data into Excel or a database? If you use our Advanced Service, our server will store all submits and you can download them as a Excel table. Login to http://tinyurl.com/yjzbyz with user=demo, password=demo and press "Save as Excel" You can customize the column headers. It costs $153/year or $15/month (October - 2008) I want the form to be emailed to different persons depending on the value of a dropdown list. So in other words, there isn't anything to where we can add to the excel spreadsheet that would have a down down menu with a list of email addresses and when its submitted it would get sent in conjunction with the notice to whoever would get that, also to the person or persons selected for the drop down list in the spreadsheet?? The email is always mailed to the same address, at least if you use our Advanced or Free Service. A workaround is to mail it to the same email address, and then have a filter in the email server that looks for a value and forwards the email to the right person. Exchange and Outlook supports filters like this. I will need to have the submissions sent to another email address, what do I do? Request a new receiver code for the new email address, enter it into the wizard and regenerate the web page, and then publish the new page. How can the submitted data be emailed to me? You have have to do the following steps: 1. Open your spreadsheet 2. Select Convert 3. Step through the wizard. 3. Press 'Configure toolbar and submit' 4. Select 'Add submit button' 5. Press 'Configure submit' 6. Press 'Request free receiver code' and enter your email address 7. Wait for the email 8. In the dialog that is still open, select 'I want to use the SpreadsheetConverter web site, here is my receiver code' 9. Enter the receiver code into the field below 8. 10. Select 'Free' or 'Advanced' 11. Press 'Ok' 12. Press 'Ok' 13. Press 'Next' and .... and 'Finish' to start the conversion. 14. Once Internet Explorer is opened, you can test, enter some values and press 'Submit' 15. Your first email arrives. Can the submit buttom be configured to send an auto response to the person submitting the form as well as to me? No, not directly. However, if you named the cell in Excel where the user enters his email address "email", you can set up an auto-responder on your own email address. How would you go about setting up different Forms with different email addresses for Submit? Example - Some forms would go top Bob is shipping, another to Sally in accounting and yet another to Harry in IT. Is there a way to change the email addresses locally? You need to request one receiver code for each email address, and then have that receiver code entered in the wizard when you generate the form. I would like my spreadsheet web page to simply close when the user clicks on the Submit button. The solution is to the success url to a window that close itself, for example see discussion at http://forums.devshed.com/javascript-development-115/javascr ipt-close-problem-23554.html Create a page that only contains and place that on your server and call it close-window.htm . Then set the success url to http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/close-window.htm Where can I change the e-mail of the Advanced Service to where the forms are send to? The Advanced Service consists of two parts 1. The email looks like the web page 2. The fields are stored in a database for later retrival. You get 1. by selecting Advanced Service in the SpreadsheetConverter wizard You get 2. by using a recevier code for an email address that is known to SpreadsheetServer. When we set up the Advanced Service account for you, you got one login + password. Create a new user for the second email address whose submits you want to store, request a receiver code for this second email address, enter it into the wizard, convert and publish. I do not get the submits from the Free or Advanced Submit Service anymore, why? Most likely, the emails are blocked by your spam filter. Note that you have at least two spam filters; one in your local email program, and one in the email server. Tell the guys who manage the email server to make sure that emails from @spreadsheet-converter.com (with an extra dash) are not blocked. If this doesn't help, request a new receiver code for an email address on another domain, regenerate the web form with this new receiver code, and then upload the new page. To be 100% sure no submits are lost, you should use the Advanced Submit Service since all the submits are saved into our database. Thus, you can always retrieve them later. In order to make this work, the email address you used for creating the receiver code must have an account in the Advanced Submit Service. Yahoo Mail suggest that you set up a filter in Yahoo! Mail to ensure that they get your email messages in their Inbox. Yahoo! Mail users may find more information regarding filters at this page: http://help.yahoo.com/help/mail/manage/manage-06.html Support What support does SpreadsheetConverter come with? SpreadsheetConverter comes with 6 month of free e-mail support from our tech support. How do I update my installation? Download the last version from our website and install it. http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/download/Default.htm Trial, Free trial Can I get a full version of SpreadsheetConverter? You can download a free evaluation version of SpreadsheetConverter to try it out. This is a size-limited demo that you can use to evaluate all of SpreadsheetConverter's features and performance. If you need to test a full spreadsheet, you can send us the spreadsheet and we will convert it for you. We can also send you a trial key that removes the size restrictions of the free trial. Upload and publishing to website I need to publish the web page on our corporate web page, is this difficult? Since the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter is totally self-contained this is easy to do. Precisely how you achieve this will depend on how your web site is set up. If you work for a large company, you are probably using some kind of content management system (CMS). Such systems have a way of importing a finished HTML-documents. You can treat the page generated by SpreadsheetConverter just as any HTML-page. Then the CMS will handle adding the banners etc... If the web site isn't managed by a CMS, then whoever is responsible for the web site is probably using some kind of web authoring tool, such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. These tools will add the company banners etc to the web page more or less automatically. Talk to them, and tell them to take the initial part of the generated web page (the part from the first <style> to </head> and copy it into the head of the template, and the part between <body> and </body> and copy it into the body of the template. For more information, see the SpreadsheetConverter manual. How do I publish an SpreadsheetConverter web page? You publish it to your ordinary web server where you have your other web pages. You use the same technique as you do for your other web pages, typically ftp, Frontpage extensions or webfolders. Does the ISP who is hosting my site have to publish the calculator on to the webserver? No, it is a plain web page. Is the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter purely on-line/local, no hidden links to any server or whatever on the background? The HTML-version works on any webserver. You can also save the web page to your local harddisk, and the calculations still works. I don't have the ability to run programs on the server. It is owned by someone else. You can use SpreadsheetConverter for HTML. It is just a plain web page, and it doesn't get smart until it is shown in a browser. How do I upload the web page to my webserver? If your webserver supports webdav and similar you can open it using http://user:password@www.domain-name.com and the drag the file from your local computer into the newly opened window. IE will copy your file to the webserver. If you use ftp, instead open the link ftp://user:password@www.domain-name.com and then drop your file into the window. If you are sitting behind a firewall and use ftp://, then you might have to change two settings of Internet Explorer: Select Tools-Internet Options Select Advanced tab Select 'Enable folder view for ftp sites' Select 'Use passive ftp' If still unclear, let me know. You are not the only one having this problem. Can SpreadsheetConverter be used to convert an Excel spreadsheet and place it in a blog, i.e. WordPress, Blogger or TypePad? Can your calculators and forms be used also with Content Management Systems like the Drupal or Joomla CMS? Some content management systems can only import "dumb" objects like images, but not scripted objects like our calculators. We have documented the best procedure for each tool. Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Blogger Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Drupal Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Google Sites Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Joomla Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in Squarespace Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in TypePad Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in WordPress Import Excel spreadsheets and charts in any blog or website In most cases you can also upload the calculator to another web server and use it in your CMS or blog with an iframe or an iframe plug-in. Validate input I want to limit input to a range. Such as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 Either create a dropdown list in Excel using Data-Validation-List, or put a formula like =IF(AND(A1>0;A1<11;A1=INT(A1)),"","Enter value between 1 and 10") in the cell next to the input cell. Format the text red, so that it will stand out. How can I verify that the user doesn't enter a value larger than 10? Place a formula in the cell next to the input cell, font color=red, and let it be like =IF(A1>10,"Max 10 please","") or any other validation. How can I verify that the user enters an integer? Set the format of the cell to number with 0 decimals. How can I make calculated default values? In Excel you can have a formula and then let the user overwrite it, but that is not supported by SpreadsheetConverter, since formulas can never be changed. Workaround: You can implement calculated default values using 4 cells like this B1: FALSE B2: <formula for calculting default> B3: 0 B4: =IF(B1,B2,B3) If the checkbox is unset, the users defined value will be used, otherwise the calculated. Test here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.htm and spreadsheet here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/samples/simple-default-v alue/simple-default-value.xls VBA Does SpreadsheetConverter support macros, VBA, or custom functions? SpreadsheetConverter does not support macros and VBA. Custom functions are supported. Please contact support@spreadsheetconverter.com for more information. Microsoft Visual Studio When I import the ASP.NET page into Visual Studio 2003, it complains about SRC=. You have to delete the SRC-attribute. Visual Studio 2003 uses CodeBehind instead. You find a tutorial here: http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/tutorials/programmers/as pnet/save-asp-net-to-database-14.pdf A little article describing the difference between Src and CodeBehind: http://www.dotnetcoders.com/web/Articles/ShowArticle.aspx?ar ticle=22 Visual Studio is too expensive, any alternatives? If you do not want to purchase VS, there are free alternatives. Microsoft® Visual Web Developer® 2010 Express provides you with everything you need to start building standards-friendly Web applications http://www.microsoft.com/express/Web/ How can I store the form values in a database? You want to store the values from your ASP.NET form into a database and repopopulate the form when the user returns back. Connecting an ASP.NET form created with SpreadsheetConverter to a database is very easy if you know some programming and Visual Studio. Web design I would like to add a SpreadsheetConverter web page to my web. I use FrontPage. If you have navigational bars on top or to the left in your web site, you cannot use 'Insert-file' into an existing web page. If you do FrontPage will create a non-working web page! Instead you must use the following method to add the page: Select File-Import and press Add File. Select the file generated by SpreadsheetConverter. Open the newly inserted page. Note that it contains no navigational bars. Select Format-Theme and select the default theme. Select Format-Shared Borders and apply to the selected page. Select View-Navigation and using drag-and-drop move the inserted page to the location where you want it. Right-click on the page that you just moved and make sure that ’Included in Navigation bar’ is selected. Now, your page should appear like the other pages in your web site and the navigation structure should include the new page. How do I change the look-and-feel of the page? The look-and-feel of the web page generated by SpreadsheetConverter is defined by a number of style sheets in the header of the HTML-file. By changing the style sheet values the page layout will change. You can also open up the page in FrontPage or Dreamweaver and change the layout and look-and-feel. All calculations will continue to work as normal. I would like to be able to select values from a dropdown-list (select) Lists created using Data-Validation-List in Excel will automatically be presented as dropdown-lists. I would like to be able to have a checkbox All input cells that contain TRUE/FALSE (or any localized version of it like WAHR in Germany), will automatically be presented as checkboxes. I want to limit input to a range. Such as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 Either create a dropdown list in Excel using Data-Validation-List, or put a formula like =IF(AND(A1>0;A1<11;A1=INT(A1)),"","Enter value between 1 and 10") in the cell next to the input cell. Format the text red, so that it will stand out. I would like to put all of the worksheets in a workbook onto tabs, just as it appears in Excel You will get tabs if you choose to show more than one worksheet. The web page is a little wider than the Excel page The width of the tables created by SpreadsheetConverter are only approximate. Browsers will do some reformatting when it shows the page. I want to make the calculator part of an existing web page? If you ever need to insert a spreadsheet on an existing page in your web, just follow the steps below. Create the spreadsheet in Excel. Convert the spreadsheet to a web page using SpreadsheetConverter. Open the resulting web page in your html editor. Using your html editor, also open the existing page where the spreadsheet is to be inserted. In the <head> … </head> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with <!-- Header start --> and ending with <!-- Header end --> and copy it (including the leading and trailing comment) to the end of the <head> … </head> section of the existing page. In the <body> … </body> section of the SpreadsheetConverter file, locate the section beginning with <!-- Body start --> and ending with <!-- Body end --> and copy it to where you want the spreadsheet to appear in the <body> … </body> section of the existing page. (optional) Copy the onload-event from <body into your <body-tag. Typically the onload-event looks like this: <body onload="initial_update();document.formc.pA1A.focus();"> It initializes the form and places the cursor at the first field. Can we specify the output HTML page in terms of cell and text sizes and colors so it matches our website format? Or are we restricted to the formatting options that are available in Excel? The generated web page will look like your Excel sheet with colors, borders, sizes etc. This is a standard web page, so you can open it and change the layout, color etc using a tool like Dreamweaver. I noticed the one that calculates the distance between two cities. Yet, the database information was not shown on the resulting web page. You can decide what to show to the user. The rest is hidden in JavaScript. I am trying to convert a sheet which has a lookup table on it, but I do not wish the lookup table to appear in the final web page. SpreadsheetConverter will automatically hide lookup tables, so you can place them on the same sheet. Is there a trick to get a page to start in an empty/non-input field? Set focus needs the name of field where focus should be changed. If you name the cell in excel to 'mystart', you can use that name there. The <body part has a onload-attribute where setFocus is called. You can change that to another field. So instead of document.formc.pA1A.focus(); use document.formc.mystart.focus(); I want to add a button to link the converted html file to home page in my web Add the following code to your page Just change out the "page.html" with the URL of the page you want to click and go to. This faq is only relevant for SpreadsheetConverter v4 or earlier. Version 5 lets you show Excel's hyperlinks as buttons. When printed, the web page is printed in half size. The problem is that you have white invisible colums to the right, and this together with "shrink-to-fit" when printing, gives this result. Solution: Open the worksheet, press Ctrl-End and see in which colunm you end up. Assuming you end up in column Z, but you only want the user to see column A to H, select column H to Z and hide these. Webquery I would like to fetch some data from other sites or from a web service, how can I do that? It is easy to do, but requires some knowledge in JavaScript and HTML. Just add a JavaScript function that fetches the data and stores it into respective fields. If you look at the web page, you see that the form fields are named with the same names as the corresponding spreadsheet cells. You can make the new fields hidden and/or read-only. Does SpreadsheetConverter support webqueries? No, but it is easy to write code in ASP, ASP.NET, JSP, PHP to insert and retrieve data. How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically? If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following: How to initialize values on the server Webservices I would like to fetch some data from other sites or from a web service, how can I do that? It is easy to do, but requires some knowledge in JavaScript and HTML. Just add a JavaScript function that fetches the data and stores it into respective fields. If you look at the web page, you see that the form fields are named with the same names as the corresponding spreadsheet cells. You can make the new fields hidden and/or read-only. How to I set a constant used by the calculator programmatically? If you have created a calculator, and there are some constants you want to set, for example the current rate, then read the following: How to initialize values on the server Website integration I would like to add a SpreadsheetConverter web page to my web. I use FrontPage. If you have navigational bars on top or to the left in your web site, you cannot use 'Insert-file' into an existing web page. If you do FrontPage will create a non-working web page! Instead you must use the following method to add the page: Select File-Import and press Add File. Select the file generated by SpreadsheetConverter. Open the newly inserted page. Note that it contains no navigational bars. Select Format-Theme and select the default theme. Select Format-Shared Borders and apply to the selected page. Select View-Navigation and using drag-and-drop move the inserted page to the location where you want it. Right-click on the page that you just moved and make sure that ’Included in Navigation bar’ is selected. Now, your page should appear like the other pages in your web site and the navigation structure should include the new page. My workbook contains links to other web page, for example elememts.htm, after conversion, they do not work SpreadsheetConverter always generates a folder where all the files for a specific spreadsheet is stored. You have to edit the generated page. Depending on where you place the element.htm, replace elements.htm by ../elements.htm Printer-friendly	Twitter Follow us on Twitter The new name for ExcelEverywhere is Spreadsheet- Converter The name change does not affect your use of ExcelEverywhere.
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