Comments on: Move Excel spreadsheets online, share and embed web app in your website

With the emergence of Excel Online, you no longer need cumbrous HTML code to export your tables to the web. Just save your workbook online and access it literally from anywhere, share with other users and work on the same sheet all together. Continue reading →

Comments page 2. Total comments: 67

  1. I have been using google drive to publish a spreadsheet to the web and then have my various office excel workbooks update from it through the get external data option. Every time it was changed online by any of the collaborators my various workbooks would update so long as i refreshed. It was working perfectly but unfortunately i am, based in China and google has been throttled so hard that this feature no longer works.. Is it possible to do this from the onedrive through excel online? it seems weird that google drive should be more functional than microsoft's own solution. Or am i missing something?

    1. Hi!

      Your spreadsheets will get updated as long as all of your collaborators work online. Let me quote what Microsoft says in this regard: "Everyone works in Excel Online; if someone opens the workbook in the Excel desktop application, the workbook can't be edited in Excel Online until it's closed again in desktop Excel." You can find more details here.

      1. Svetlana,

        Thanks a lot for your reply. My collaborators on the online document are working fine. What i was getting at is the "get external data from web" option in desktop excel. The link i generated in excel online doesn't work when i enter it into the box to import external data, it just loads up the excel online start up page but not the doc itself. All the information i have found only talks about embedding on webpages through an html link but nothing about publishing a link with which to import to various independent worksheets through the "export external data" option on excel desktop. Can you tell me how to do this? I hope I am explaining myself properly. Thanks for your time.

        1. Hi Sam,

          Got it, thank you for the clarification. The "Get external data from web" option does not work in the way you want in the current version of Excel, maybe in the next Office release... Currently, this is simply a way to grab information from a web-page.

          I know only 2 ways to import info from online to desktop and vice versa:
          - On OneDrive, right-click a sheet and select "Open in Excel" from the context menu.
          - In desktop Excel, click Open > OneDrive.

          1. Svetlana,

            Thanks sgain! In fact I'm not looking to open the whole document. all i want to do is grab a table from an online doc. This does work in google drive via the "publish to web" link. The link generated in onedrive "share - get link" does not. I still feel like I'm missing something. it seems like a big oversight because its a very useful function.

            Just to further clarify: I'm using my online table as my product database for all of my sales sheets ( about 15 different and remotely operating employees) and the prices are always changing. this way the sales sheets (which have a copy of the database as one of the sheets in the workbook) are always up to date in real time so long as they refresh the data (recopy the table from the online doc) before they make an entry.

            1. Hi Sam,

              I fully understand your point. To my best knowledge it is not possible to use Excel's "From web" option to get info from your online spreadsheet : (

  2. Is there any limit on number of users working simultaneously?

    1. Hello Mukesh,
      There is no hard limit for the number of users working simultaneously on an Excel spreadsheet online. They call it co-authoring, and according to Microsoft, having up to 30 users at the same time should be fine.

  3. I've been using excel on-line to embed data, works great; however, I've had no luck with embedding the data with slicers. Appears that slicers cannot be used? I've been researching but cannot find a detailed answer.

    1. Hello Eddie,

      According to Microsoft, you can view slicers in your online spreadsheets but cannot create or edit slicers in Excel Online. You can find the official description here (Slicer viewing section).

  4. my excel file has many sheets and I only want to share a certain sheet with friend. Can i do it?

    1. Hi Khanh,

      Regrettably, Microsoft Excel does not have an option to share only some spreadsheets of a given workbook. The only way is to copy the needed sheet into a new workbook, then save that workbook to OneDrive, and share with your friend.

  5. Does one need a Microsoft/Hotmail/Live account to edit shared Excel Online spreadsheets?

    1. You would be required to log in with your Microsoft account only if the person who shared the spreadsheet selected the option "Require user to sign in before accessing the document". Please see "Step 3. Share the spreadsheet you saved online" for more details.

  6. I have a VB macro in my workbook, that does not function in the online version. What am I doing wrong?

    1. Hi Paul,

      You are doing everything right. Regrettably, macros do not run in the current version of Excel Online. Hopefully, Microsoft will be able to support them in the online version too at some point in the future.

      1. Hi,

        Given that macros are not supported, Is there a way to build the equivalent of a VSTO Application in Excel On Line? I have a non-trivial VSTO application that have evolved from being a pure Macro to a solution that combines both, C# code and a bit of VBA code. The application interacts with SAP and SQL Server. I can replace the VBA code that is still left with its C# equivalent, but now I have also been asked to take this app to the next level and reach a higher audience in our intranet. I'd like to understand if such an app can be written for the online version of Excel. Thanks

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