Forum Discussion
unable to disable/delete embedded Web Query links in excel - screen shots added
I import financial data (personal, not work or business related) all the time, but I do it by first exporting the data from the financial institutions, all of which make that fairly easy to do. Some do it via Excel files, most (really, all) offer to export CSV files (which in at least one case--I'm looking at you, American Express--is far to be preferred to their abomination of an XLSX file).
So depending on what it would take to start over, instead of cleaning up what you already have, I'd recommend investigating that export-then-import route.
Thank you for your suggestion.
Generally, this should work as long as the financial institution offers CSV or QIF etc.
Most of my financial institutions offer PDF only, especially if it is older than 12 or 18 months.
I have Acrobat software, but that doesn't consistently or accurately translate text 100% of the time.
I have tried highlight and paste, which only works to grab rows, and translates into a mess of columns that are not congruent and requires much cleanup.
Web Select by page/rows also results in a mess of incongruent columns.
Web Select by column is VERY accurate, and fairly simple to paste right into excel, if you can trust that it isn't also embedding hidden code in the excel file.
Web Select - first copy into Word - then copy and paste to Excel appears to not include hidden code, until copy and paste to Excel proves the formulas and conditional formatting do not work properly due to the hidden/embedded code (Web Query).
I need to figure how to locate and remove the embedded code which is sometimes (not always) generated by Web Select.
Remaining options include manually type and proofread thousands of lines of data, or manually copy and paste thousands line by line.
- https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel/cell-has-a-list-wrapped-in-html-split-list-into-2-separated-by/td-p/3763726
Do you want to clean data after having downloaded datas from web like above case?- Thanks for your reply, I am not sure how to respond to your question because I doin't understand what you are asking. But I am NOT downloading - I am using Micorsoft's Edge tool "Web Select" via a copy&paste type of method.
Generally, this should work as long as the financial institution offers CSV or QIF etc.
Most of my financial institutions offer PDF only, especially if it is older than 12 or 18 months.
Ouch. Yes. I'm working only with relatively current data (the oldest maybe a few months old).
Well, let's see if other folks have other ideas.
