Web Browser Web Browsers Web Queries In Excel

Excel has a built-in web browser that can be used to view web pages and import selected web data. This browser worked well for many years, but, recently, script errors began appearing on some pages. This makes it challenging to import data from some web pages, and frustrates users. The good news is that we can use a Get & Transform query as an alternative to opening Excel’s web browser.

Apr 01, 2015 Re: Change Default Browser for Excel Web Query Check the settings under the Start Button, Default Programs, Set program access and computer defaults. In the same area check Set your default programs. There are defaults for both Chrome and IE.maybe they are not set up to do what you want. Step 1: In the VBA editor (ALT + F11), create a userform as usual: Right click at any of the objects and then insert - UserForm. Step 2: In order to add the Webbrowser object you should do the following: Right click on the toolbox and select Additional Controls. Next, from the available choices, select Microsoft Web Browser and then click OK. Excel: Changing the web query browser from IE to firefox or chrome Hi, anyone knows how to change this? Im currently trying to load web query for a website (https.

Objective

Our goal is to import data from a web page. For example, we’d like to import some exchange rates from Google’s finance page. When we launch Excel’s web browser (Data > Get External Data > From Web), some pages show up just fine. This is illustrated below.

But, when we navigate to another page, we may get an intermittent script error. For example, if we try to navigate to Google’s Finance page shown below.

Often, you can refresh the page or close the browser and try again to get a clean page load, but, the error slows us down…and…we just don’t like being slowed down.

The good news is that we can retrieve web data using a Get & Transform query. This provides a clean alternative to Excel’s web browser. Let’s check it out.

Get & Transform Query

We’ll accomplish this with the following steps:

  • Enter the web page URL
  • Pick the data table
  • Load to Excel

We’ll work through each step together.

Default

Note: The steps below are presented with Excel for Windows 2016. If you are using a different version of Excel, please note that the features presented may not be available or you may need to download and install the Power Query Add-in.

Enter the web page URL

To retrieve web data using a Get & Transform query, you’ll need to know the web URL. You can commit it to memory if it’s short and simple, or, just browse to the page in your normal browser and copy the web address. Next, you’ll want to use the following command from the Get & Transform ribbon group:

  • Data > New Query > From Other Sources > From Web
Excel-university.com

This displays the From Web dialog, where we can enter the desired URL, as shown below.

We click OK to open the Navigator dialog, where we can pick the desired data table.

Pick the data table

The Navigator dialog displays the importable web tables that exist at the URL. You can click through the tables and get a preview of the data. Since we want the exchange rate table, we click through the tables until we find the one we want, as shown below.

With the data table selected, it is time to move to the final step.

Load to Excel

We use the Load button to bring the data back into Excel. If we select Load, Excel will place the data into a blank worksheet. If we select Load To, Excel allows us to specify the destination. Either way, the data is loaded into Excel, as shown below.

Now, the best part is that we can easily update the data table from within Excel. Just right-click and refresh…and Excel retrieves the current data. And…no pesky script errors!

Resources

Web Query Software

Web Browser Web Browsers Web Queries In Excel

Excel Default Browser - Social.technet.microsoft.com

See

Web Browser In Excel

  • Sample Excel file: WebData
  • Excel web browser: https://www.excel-university.com/articles/cal-cpa/excel-on-the-web/
  • Stock quotes: https://www.excel-university.com/articles/cal-cpa/market-share/

Symptoms

In Microsoft Excel, when you create a Web query from a site that uses the Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (https://), you may receive an error message that resembles the following error message:

Unable to open
address. Cannot download the information you requested.

Note In this message, address is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the secure Web page that you are trying to connect to.

Cause

This issue occurs when Excel cannot initiate a connection because of the settings on the secure Web server.

More Information

Browsers

See All Results For This Question

To test whether Excel is able to connect to a particular Web page, follow these steps:

  1. In Microsoft Office Excel 2003 or in Microsoft Excel 2002, click Open on the File menu.
    In Microsoft Office Excel 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click
    Open.

  2. In the File name box, type the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of the secure Web page that you want to open, and then click Open.

Web Browser Web Browsers Web Queries In Excel

If you cannot open the Web page, Excel cannot connect to the secure Web page, and you cannot create a Web query.