Part IV: Managing and Analyzing Data
HTML files
Excel can open most HTML files, which can be stored on your local drive or on a web server.
The way that the HTML code renders in Excel varies considerably. Sometimes, the HTML
file may look exactly as it does in a browser. At other times, it may bear little resemblance,
especially if the HTML file uses Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for its layout.
In some cases, you can access data on the Web by using Power Query. We discuss this topic
in Part V, “Understanding Power Pivot and Power Query.”
XML files
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a text file format suitable for structured data. Data is
enclosed in tags, which also serve to describe the data.
Excel can open XML files, and simple files will display with little or no effort. Complex XML
files will require some work, however. A discussion of this topic is beyond the scope of this
book. You’ll find information about getting data from XML files in Excel’s Help system and
online.
Importing vs. opening
When you use File ➪ Open to open a file that’s not in a traditional Excel format, you may
be opening the file, or you may be importing it, depending on the file type. As mentioned,
database files aren’t opened. Rather, a table from inside the database file is imported.
XML files are another example of a format that may not open directly. When you open an
XML file, you have the choice of opening it as a read-only workbook or importing it into a
table.
Text files are opened directly. Excel understands CSV files, so it doesn’t have to ask you
any questions when you open them. For tab-delimited or fixed-width files, the Text Import
Wizard will guide you in identifying where the data begins and ends.
When a file is opened directly, the Excel title bar will show the file’s name. Figure 25.2
shows the Excel title bar after a file named reunion.txt was opened. When the File ➪
Open process actually imports the data, it’s imported into a new workbook. In that case, the
title bar will have a generic new workbook name, like Book1.
