Please send questions, comments and suggestions to Sayward@ae.vitro.com
The latest version and documentation can be found on my AOL web page at http://users.aol.com/ksayward/
Description
XTML was created for one basic purpose: To create HTML Tables quickly and easily. If you have data in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, XTML can convert it into a table ready for inclusion in your web site - with one command. You can use the normal excel formatting commands to assign font styles and text alignment, and XTML will produce the necessary HTML tags to reproduce the table on the web. The resulting HTML source is saved into a text file, where you can edit and fine-tune it just as you would any of your other web files.
What you need
• Microsoft Excel version 5.0 or later (Macintosh or Windows versions).
• 7 bucks. This is shareware :-)
Please send a check or money order for $7.00 (US) to:
Ken Sayward
155 Flanders Rd
Niantic, CT 06333
USA
I did spend quite a bit of time writing this to be as flexible as possible; If you use it for more than a few days, please register it. If you send me your email address along with the 7 bucks, I'll make sure you get notification of the latest versions when anything changes.
Installation
Macintosh - 'XTML Add-In' is an Add-in module for Microsoft Excel v5.0 or later. Just drop it in the 'Excel Startup Folder (5)' folder inside your preferences folder within the system folder. If you don't have a folder called 'Excel Startup Folder (5)', simply make one and drop the XTML Add-in file into it. The file must be named 'XTML Add-In'.
Windows - 'XTML.XLA' is an Add-in module for Microsoft Excel v5.0 or later. Just drop it in the '\XLStart' subdirectory inside your Excel 5 directory. The file must be named 'XTML.XLA'.
Note that the add-in file is binary compatible across Mac and Windows platforms. The only requirement is that the file be named according to the platform it is used on.
That's it. The next time you launch Excel, you'll have a new item in the 'Tools' menu, called "XTML", with a few subitems (explained below).
How it works
1) Create your spreadsheet table in Excel (what better place to maintain tabular data?)
2) Format the cells if necessary.
XTML will honor the following, on a cell-by-cell basis:
- bold cells will get marked up as <strong> - (default tag can be changed - see preferences below).
- italic cells will get marked up as <em> (emphasis) - (default tag can be changed - see preferences below).
- bold italic cells will get both <strong> and <em> tags - (default tags can be changed - see preferences below).
- Centered cells will get <td align=center> tags
- Right-aligned cells will get <td align=right> tags
- Numeric cells will default to right aligned, where no specific alignment is applied to the cell.
- Cells formatted with Excel's "center across selection" will get the appropriate COLSPAN tag.
3) Position the Excel cursor in any of the cells within the target table
4) Select 'Convert to HTML Table…' from the 'XTML' pop-up menu in the 'Tools' menu. You'll see the following dialog:
HTML Table Options explained
• Input Range. The range of excel cells you would like to create HTML source for. Excel will do a best guess based on the active cell when you select "Convert to HTML Table…" from the menu. You can change the input range by selecting the cells you wish to work with, while the dialog box is open.
• Window Title. The text which will appear in the window title when the page is viewed with a web browser. The default is the name of the Excel worksheet.
• Table Caption. The text which will appear above the table, with <caption> & <h2> tags. The default is the name of the Excel worksheet. You can change the header tags to whatever you'd like in the resulting .html file. It seemed to me that <h1> was a bit of overkill.
• Output Filename. The filename for the resulting text file. The default is the name of the Excel worksheet, with ".html" appended to it. Note: the file will be automatically saved to the current active folder as shown in Excel when you do a 'save as…' or 'open…'.
• Header and Cell Formatting. Determines the look of the resulting HTML source.
- Default: Marks up the first row of the table with <th> tags; no other formatting.
- Use Excel Formatting: Marks up all cells according to their format and alignment as described in 'How it works'.
- None: No special formatting at all. Only marks up the table with <tr> and <td> tags.
• Include Table Border. Just what it says.
• Borders on blank cells. If you check this option, XTML will insert “ ” into HTML table cells, so that those cells get borders around them as well. Only applies when the ‘Include Table Border’ option is selected.
• Border width [ ] pixels. Size of the table border (if enabled). Valid range is 1 - 25. Values outside of this range will be reset to 1 (the default).
• Table Width [ ] %. Specify the percentage of the width of the web page to display the table. For example, if you enter 50%, the table will be centered on the page but only use half of the current page width. Default is 100%.
Setting Preferences
XTML v1.1.0 and higher maintains a file in your 'preferences' folder called 'XTML Prefs' (in the Windows version, the prefs file is called 'XTMLPREF.txt' and is stored in the same directory as the Excel application file). This file is created automatically the first time you select one of the XTML menu items. It is initially created with default values, but you can change them as follows. Select 'Preferences…' from the 'XTML' pop-up menu in the 'Tools' menu. You'll see the following dialog:
XTML Preferences explained
• Horizontal Alignment. Check this box to tell XTML to preserve the alignment of cells as formatted in Excel.
• Numbers default to right aligned. Check this box to tell XTML to automatically tag numeric cells as right aligned, unless another alignment has been applied to the cell.
• Numeric Formats. Check this box to tell XTML to preserve the formatting of numeric cells, such as currency, commas, percentages, etc.
• Font Styles. Check these boxes to tell XTML to preserve the font style of cells as formatted in Excel. In addition, you can specify which tags to use for the (currently) three styles supported. The defaults are shown in the dialog box above.
Caution:If you change the tags for bolditalic, and you still use two different tags (like <b><i>), be careful to get the closing tags in the correct order.
• Display file format warnings after processing. Check this box so that XTML will remind the user about the fact that output files must be saved as 'formatted text (space delimited)'. If this is unchecked, no warning dialogs will be displayed.
• Reset Defaults. Click this button to reset the default values for all options in this dialog box.
Version history
Version 1.0.0 - 20 Nov 95
- Initial release
Version 1.0.1 - 21 Nov 95
- Fixed a bug where the initial <body> tag wasn't getting written to the output file.
- Fixed a bug where table rows with HTML source greater than 255 characters were being truncated.
This was fixed by changing the output style to a more 'vertical' orientation (more carriage returns).
The downside is that the output filesize is slightly larger.
The upside is that the output file is probably easier to read and fine-tune.
- Changed the text of the finishing alert message to refer to the output file as 'formatted text (space delimited)'.
Version 1.0.2 - 22 Nov 95
- Cleaned up the VBA code to make it more modular, and speed things up.
This should make it easier to add more functionality in the future.
Version 1.0.3 - 24 Nov 95
- Re-wrote the output code to write directly to a new file. Previously, the output was being written to a scratch worksheet within the XTML Add-In, then being copied and pasted into the new output file. The new method speeds things up a bit, and makes the add-in file smaller. It also eliminates the possibility that the copy/paste operation would generate a memory alert.
Version 1.0.4 - 25 Nov 95
- Now preserves Excel's numeric formats.
- Numeric cells will default to right aligned.
Version 1.1.1 - 28 Nov 95
- Added an 'XTML Prefs' file, which automatically gets created in your preferences folder.
Allows user selection of formatting tags for bold, italic, and bolditalic cells
stores user definition of which cell attributes to preserve when converting from Excel to HTML
- Changed the custom menu definitions
Now creates a submenu in the 'Tools' menu, but only when a Worksheet is the active sheet.
- Added an About… box.
- Added shareware registration code.
Version 1.1.2 - 28 Nov 95
- Added support for the Windows version of Excel.
The add-in file must be renamed as 'XTML.XLA'.
The prefs file ('XTMLPref.txt') is stored in the Excel application directory (Windows version only).
- Optimized some of the code for handling preferences. Speeds up the display of dialog boxes.
Version 1.1.3 - 30 Nov 95
- Numbers formatted as currency or accounting were not getting default right alignment. Fixed.
- Changed the calculation of the default input range:
If the current selection is exactly one cell, then XTML attempts to determine the desired input range using the
'CurrentRegion' property. If the current selection is more than one cell, then the current selection is used.
- Some 'high-ASCII' characters were not displaying properly in Excel for Windows. Fixed.
- Changed file suffix default to '.htm' when running on Excel for Windows.
Default is still '.html' on the Mac.
- Registration dialog now displays reliably when requested from 'About...' dialog.
Version 1.1.4 - 1 Dec 95
- Fixed a problem with the 'XTML Prefs' file for non-english versions of Excel.
- Added an option to add borders to blank cells.
XTML adds a " " (a nonbreaking space) in the HTML for that cell.
- Changed the table caption to acually use the <caption> tag. duh. :-)
Version 1.1.5 - 4 Dec 95
- Added a substitution routine for accented and other special characters.
XTML now substitutes the appropriate "&xxxx;" codes. For example, the "é" character is replaced with "é"
This substitution only occurs in the HTML output file.
Version 1.2.0 - 8 Dec 95
- Added support for COLSPAN. Cells formatted with Excel's "center across selection" will get COLSPAN tags.
- Revised the output file saving routine to give more control over where the HTML file gets saved.
- Added a preference to suppress the file format warning after XTML processing is complete.
Version 1.2.1 - 8 Dec 95
- Fixed a bug in the prefs code when reading old prefs files (this one slipped through earlier today).
Future plans
Pretty soon (if I can do this without adding too much processing overhead):
• Set 'row-level' alignment in the <tr> tags, if it would reduce the repetition in the <td> tags.
A little later (maybe):
• Handle 'ROWSPAN'
• Nested tables.
Distribution
This software is shareware. Permission is hereby granted for non-commercial distribution of unmodified copies of this software, so long as this documentation is included. For information about including this software on compilation CD-ROMs or disks, please contact the author.
