Hi guys,
I'm trying to push data from an excel file to a google spreadsheet, using VBA
User Story : When my user close excel, it automatically pushes the data into a back up on google sheet.
I've read some solutions about the Google API, but i do not understand how to use it.
if someone has an explanation it would be nice
Regards,
Thomas
Mixing Excel and Google is going to be a tough journey. They have a lot of compatible features and implementations and then a whole bunch of things that are just not compatible.
You won't be able to control what your users do in Excel so the "backup" may end up as a poor representation of the excel version.
If it is purely for backup, you could go the MSFT route and use OneDrive/O365 which keeps versions for you if you store in a local OneDrive. You can use auto save to keep your backup up to date.
You could go the google route by using sheets on the desktop browser.
As Thomas suggested, go with an off the shelf sync tool if the data and format is straight forward. I have had very mixed results for even some simple stuff.
Not wishing to start a tech-religion war by recommending one over the other but how you are trying to achieve this feels fraught with risk and may be hard to future-proof.
HTH.
Related
We moved to Sharepoint Online (SPO) this year and are collaborating heavily in Excel365. The experience is something of a disaster and I am hoping that I might get some responses here about "best practice" or peoples' experiences in that environment.
Observation #1:
All Excel's now open with AutoSaveOn=True. This is a total disaster because people often open Office files to simply take a look. Early users were horrified when they realized they had accidentally changed an archive file. We addressed this issue by setting AutoSaveOn=False in Auto_open.
(The AutoSaveOn=True experience requires a complete rethink of accustomed operating patterns. The established pattern when changing a file is: 1) open the original; 2) make changes; 3) save under a new name. With AutoSaveOn=true, you must: 1) make a copy of the file in the file manager; 2) open the copied file; 3) make changes. We have not managed to retrain our user base.)
We now get a different issue. In a network environment where 5 users have an Excel open purely for reference, the 6th user who is editing that file often has to fight against Office/SPO to somehow get it saved. There exists a concept of a "file lock" and someone has it. Who is unclear, and releasing it seems next to impossible. Opening an Office file "read-only" on purpose does not seem to be a concept Microsoft recognizes.
Observation #2:
All our production Excels are XLMs, not least because of the Auto_Open above. That is, working Online is not an option. (Which may be just as well because the online experience does not compare for the Excel pro.) All our users therefore synchronize relevant SPO archives to their OneDrive (OD). This should be a good thing anyway, since we are also nomadic folk, often working from the road when there is no internet. SHOULD NOT be a problem, right?
Right ... Turns out that Excel surreptitiously replaces links to other Excels on the OD with links to SPO such that when you hit the road, Excel will just hang up trying to access stuff on an unavailable Internet/SPO :( The user is forced to repoint all links manually to his OD to make it work.
Except it won't - because the Auto_Open now fails. Turns out, AutoSaveOn is not a valid property in the absence of a network connection. It seems that there are two code bases of Excel. One that is invoked with a network present, the other when there is none.
Observation #3:
When the user has somehow survived the horrific offline experience and returns to a network, the spreadsheet links fail again. Excel now throws a completely incomprehensible hissy-fit, complaining that none of the OD files exist, even though they are patently there. The only way I know to cure this issue is by going thru all links again and repointing them to the identical paths. (Behind the scenes, Excel of course uses this dialog to replace links to OD with links to SPO.)
Conclusion:
It seems that the modern Excel really wants to work in AutoSave mode but Microsoft doesn't really manage the experience. There is also no transparent switching possible between working offline and working online. All of this appears to be owed to two different code bases - online and offline - trading under the same name "Excel". We do not really require the online experience. It would be perfectly adequate for our purposes to work with the offline code on OD only, and OD can update SPO when a network is present.
Question: Does anyone know how to fool Excel into using the offline code base even in the presence of a network connection?
Any other experiences or pointers?
I'm currently writing my master dissertation about version control in Ms Excel and would love to understand the problem more thoroughly. Does anyone face the problem and would be willing to discuss this in a 10min zoom call? Will hopefully be able to provide the solution in 2 months time.
t.muller#lse.ac.uk
Problem description:
If I'm working on a spreadsheet and need input from my co-workers on the same spreadsheet, I'd start to send the sheet around (probably via Email if we worked on excel offline). Unfortunately, we tend to quickly lose an overview of the different versions in the chain, and it sometimes even happens that some of us are mistakenly working on an old version. As soon as we managed to gather the input from everyone, we struggle to get to the root of newly introduced bugs and understand and approve all changes made.
I have a little project I am working on, and would like to know more.
Is it possible to Have 3 google docs (A,B,C), and have them updated into 1 Master Google doc page?
For example, if I were to input data on Document A, I would be able to see the information automatically listed on the Master document? Same with B, and C.
I am willing to learn/work on this, just would like to know if its even possible and hope that you can help me or point me in the right direciton.
Thanks!
Due to this link it seems merging is not possible for now. Copy-Paste is a way to go but that is not what you're looking for.
by the way, Google Document has been renamed to Google Drive lately. And this is a work in progress. has lots of limitations. It's not a solution to everything. The most useful feature of it is real-time editing.
AFAIK LaTeX can do that with if you like a new challenge.
Previously I have used CodeCollaborator for code reviews, and it was a great joy for most kind of code in text files.
However, I have a need to have multiple people review an excel file, across timezones, and for whatever amount of review functionality in Excel, it just isn't enough.
One person's feedback using comments is already busy enough. I don't want to have everyone's comments on the same screen.
While a colleague suggests that CodeCollaborator could handle excel files, after visting the site, I'm less convinced that it could handle excel.
Would anyone know if CodeCollaborator would work? If not, are there alternatives that would do what I want?
How to read excel(2007+ xlsx) sheet using actionscript(AIR)?
as3xls
An Actionscript 3 library for reading and writing Excel files. Currently reading numbers, text, and formulas from Excel version 2.0-2003 and writing numbers, text, and dates to Excel 2.0 is supported. No server-side help is needed.
SUPPORT INFORMATION
Documentation and samples are at http://code.google.com/p/as3xls/
I wrote this: https://github.com/childoftv/as3-xlsx-reader I'd love to know if it helps
Do you have any idea how... Inefficient this is?
Excel uses a complex setup for files, and unless you want to write a full-scale parser for its spreadsheets (which, believe me, will be difficult, alone to figure out what the format chars do), you'd be better off finding another solution.
Say, using a "save to XML" option would make your job a few thousand times easier, without exaggeration. AS3 has no native support for Excel, there is no real point for it to have such. But it has great integrated methods for working with XML.
If possible, save the Excel files to XML and parse those.
Better still, use databases, and parse them as XML through PHP.
I did a search and came up with this: http://code.google.com/p/php-excel-reader/
Once you've got it in PHP, passing it on to Flash is no problem at all. I'd recommend turning it into straight arrays of objects and converting it to AMF3 via Zend_Amf, AMFPHP or WebOrb, whichever one you're most comfortable with. You can then create tables, manipulate the data or whatever you like. It'd also be a lot faster and lighter than using XML.
PK
I took a look at the xlsx breakdown and it would take me 1 week to write an xlsx writer that could do basic formatting and formulas. I've only spent 1 hour perusing through the directories in an xlsx file and all you'd have to do is create the same directory structure...mostly cut and paste some strings..and then zip it and call it xlsx.
I tried this theory by manually making an xlsx file using 7zip. I downloaded childoftv's reader and, though I don't need the reader, the package includes a few zip/unzip classes that would prove helpful for anyone who wants to make a xlsx writer.
Long story short, the setup isn't complex, somebody just has to take a week out of their busy schedule to do it. I need this functionality so if nobody's done it yet, then I'll have to. Hopefully my search will find something better than a forum where the general consensus is "it's too hard, give up."