Power Query offers many ways to get data to Excel. One of them is to Web Data import feature. Let’s understand how this works by importing world stock exchange closing data from Google Finance website.
[Related: Introduction to Power Query]
Importing web data in to Excel – Step by step tutorial
Note: You need Power Query for this tutorial. Install Power Query on Excel 2013 (how to) and continue reading.
- Open a blank workbook. Go to Power Query ribbon & click on From Web button. Enter the URL of the webpage from which you want to import the data.
- Your web page will be loaded in to Navigator pane. If there are any tables or other sections of the page that can be readily embedded in Excel, they will show up in the navigation tree structure. Hover on any table to see if that is the data you want. Once you identify what you need, click on Load to get this data in to Excel. If you want to pre-process the data before loading in to Excel, click on Edit.
- Let’s say you have taken Table 0, which contains stock market closing data around the world. When this is edited in Power Query window, it looks like this.
- As you can see, there are 2 problems with this data. (1) Column headers are missing (2) Column 3 should be splitted in to 2 columns.
- Renaming columns: Simply double click on column headers and write whatever header you want.
- Splitting a column: Select column 3 and Click on home > split column button in Power Query window. Specify the delimiter (in our case space should work) and click ok.
- Once column is spitted, our new set up looks like below. Column 3.2 needs further cleaning. We need to remove the brackets ( ).
- Removing the brackets: Select column 3.2 and click on Home > Replace values button. Replace ( with nothing. Repeat the replacement, but this time replace ) with nothing.
- Almost done. Our data is clean. Just change the column titles and we get this:
- Finally load this data to Excel by clicking on “Close & Load” button. Instantly, all this web data will be loaded to Excel as a new table.
How to refresh the imported data?
Simple. Do one of the below:
- Click on “Refresh all” button in Data ribbon of Excel
- Right click on Excel table with web data and choose “Refresh”
- Activate workbook queries pane (from Power Query ribbon) and refresh the query by clicking on the refresh icon at right.
Download Power Query web data – Example workbook
Please click here to download the workbook with Power Query web data extraction example. Right click on the query in workbook queries pane and edit it to understand the pre-processing steps better.
What awesome things can you do with web data in Excel?
Integrating your own data with publicly available sources can lead to interesting analysis situations. Power Query, Power BI & Power Pivot offer several ways to connect to web data (Facebook, Azure market place, Google Analytics etc.) and analyze it in Excel.
Have you tried importing web data to Excel? What has been your experience like? Please share your tips & thoughts in the comments section.
More ways to analyze web data in Excel:
Learn more about analyzing web data in Excel
15 Responses to “Make a Bubble Chart in Excel [15 second tutorial]”
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!
Whyyyyyyyy?
The idea is to tell how to make a bubble chart. I got an e-mail from a reader recently asking how the scatter bubble is made. So I thought a 15 second tutorial would be a good idea to show this.
Did that email go "Dear Chandoo, I know that you scorn bubble charts, but if I don't do one in Excel for my boss then he'll fire my sorry ass, and my children will have to be sold for medical experiments in order for me to be able to afford the upgrade path to Excel 2010"?
If so, fair enough...it's all in the greater good 😉
Chandoo,
I am using excel 2003 and it is not working. The x axis is not the one that I enter in x axis column. Please help! Thanks.
Sorry, after few attempts, I managed to get the right result. I shouldn't select the title (header) of the table and select only the data to produce the right bubble chart.
What's wrong with bubble charts? Is there a better method for displaying scatter plots with lots of overlapping data points? Don't tell me you'd rather jitter!
@Sanwijay: Cool.
@Precious Roy: There is nothing wrong with bubble charts. Infact, it is the only way to show 3 dimensional data (x,y and sizes) without confusing your audience. Jeff is worried that people might misuse the chart. As with any chart, bubbles also have a place and time for using them.
I recommend using bubble charts to show relative performance various products in several regions and similar situations.
Also, human eye is notorious in wrongly estimating the bubble sizes (as we have to measure areas). See http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/07/28/charting-lessons-from-optical-illusions/
We can partially improve bubble charts by adding data labels, but if you have too many bubbles, the labels will clutter the chart and make it look busy.
I can't seem to find a way to plot more than ten bubbles on a chart and need to know how to add more
@KW.. why would such a thing happen. I am sure you can add more bubbles that that. Can you tell us exactly what you are doing...
Example table:
A B C (size)
Me: 25 30 15%
Him: 30 22 11%
Her: 12 30 20%
I am trying to make a bubble chart where the Y axis is A, the X axis is B, and the size of the bubble is C. There should be only 3 bubbles. I keep ending up with six (with the labels being only "Me" and "Her"). My goal is to have three bubbles, one representing each person. Clearly I am doing something wrong. Can you help explain...?
Hi,
I wanted to add data labels to the bubbles. Each bubble represents a different company name. Excel allows me to add the size, legend, x axis values and y axis values. How do I add instead- Company A, B, C, D for the bubbles?
youon you have to choice every data for every company..
ex:create bubble for A company,after that click right> add data label> adjust data labels :format data labels and choose : series name.
i hop u will succeed .
[...] we create a bubble chart with 2 bubbles. 1 for the actual mustache & 1 for target [...]
If we want bubble size to be controlled by one column, but the bubble labels to be controlled by another column, how can this be achieved?
many thanks!!!!