I hope I can ask this question well.  

Here's what I'd like to do.  I would like to take data from a
microsoft excel spreadsheet and have it automatically get plugged into
my website template and create a new webpage.  I want each row of
data/information on the spreadsheet to appear on a new webpage on my
website.  1 row of data = 1 new webpage.

I want each webpage it creates to have my website's template/colors,
borders, navigation links, etc.

So basically a spreadsheet row might have the following information:  

Column A, Row 1: Dallas Use Cars, 200 Main St, Dallas TX, 90276
Column B, Row 1: 905-548-5588
Column C, Row 1: www.dallasusedcars.com
Column D: Row 1: Used Cars Sales

I want a program that can automatically take thousands of these rows
and create webpages with that information on them.  I will have much
more than 3 or 4 cells of data.  I want to be able to specify where
the particular cell will go on the webpage (ie. Colum D cells creat
Title Tags).

So basically if I have 2000 rows of information, this program would
create 2000 unique webpages.  Plugging in the data from specified
cells into a predesigned webpage template and creating a webpage.

I'm not too familar with MySQL or online databases, which is where I
suspect you may go with this.  Ideally I'd be just fine if I could
create the webpages all locally on my PC, and simply upload them to my
webhost and be done with it.  I'm not looking to manage this
information or update it every month, etc.  Of course some sort of
sitemap or directory page would need to be created in the process, so
each page could be found.

What do you suggest?

I am definately not a programmer, so I'd be happy to buy a software
program if it could do this - assuming its not too expensive.

---

Request for Question Clarification by sublime1-ga on 02 Nov 2006 13:29 PST

patdoo...

Excel has a built-in converter which can convert an excel page
to HTML by selecting File -> Save as HTML.

However, many people have found that this conversion is not
satisfactory. One programmer, David McRitchie, has created
a VBS macro code, which can be installed into Excel, which
is an improvement on the built-in conversion:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/xl2html.htm

Instructions for installing the macro script provided on that
page are given on this page:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm


If that still seems like it might be too difficult, you may
want to explore the highly-rated Click to Convert utility,
which sells for $119:

"Click to Convert masquerades as a printer and utilizes the
 standard Windows printing technology to capture data from a
 wide variety of programs, including - but by no means limited
 to - all of the Microsoft Office apps, Microsoft Works and
 Corel WordPerfect..."
http://www.clicktoconvert.com/Reviews_and_Feedback/reviews_and_feedback.html

You can download and test it for free, here:
http://www.clicktoconvert.com/Features/features.html


Alternately, another Spreadsheet Converter from a Microsoft
Certified Partner can be found on this site:
http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/nonez/demo/xlew

The HTML/javascript version is $97 to buy, and free to try,
and there's a Flash video demo that walks you through the
process of using the program here:
http://www.spreadsheetconverter.com/nonez/demo/xlew1.htm

Other versions, for conversion to ASP & ASP.net and Java/JSP
are slightly more expensive.


And now for something completely different. Improbulus,
on his blog, has detailed how to email yourself an excel
file to a gmail account (hopefully you have one, or know
someone with a gmail account who can send you an invite).

Once the file arrives, gmail offers you the option of
viewing it or downloading it. If you choose 'view', it
converts the file into HTML for display. You can then
r-click the HTML display and choose 'View source'. If
you then select all of the source code and copy it to
a text file in Notepad, and then remame the file with
an HTML extension, you will have an HTML version of the
excel file to upload to your server. This may be more
work than you'd like, but it's free:
http://consumingexperience.blogspot.com/2006/03/tip-convert-word-to-html-and-convert.html


These appear to be the most promising solutions available,
and one of them may work for you.


I am not yet posting this as a formal answer because there
are conditions of your question which have not been satisfied, 
and I'm skeptical that they can be, without the assistance of
a programmer to create a personalized code specifically for
this project. I'm reasonably certain that there aren't any
active researchers who have this sort of expertise. You 
might consider hiring a coder at a site which specializes
in fulfilling such projects, such as RentACoder:
http://www.rentacoder.com/RentACoder/default.asp

GetaFreelancer:
http://www.getafreelancer.com/

elance
http://www.elance.com/


First, you want the spreadsheet to fit into your website
template, maintaining colors, border, links, etc. No generic
converter will be able to accomplish this, from what I see.

Second, you want individual rows of data to be reformatted as
HTML. I haven't used any of the software above, so I don't
know if any of it allows the possibility of selecting single
rows from an entire spreadsheet and converting only them.
One of them may allow for this, or it may be necessary to
create a new sheet for each row and convert that spreadsheet
to HTML. Alternately, a programmer could conceivably write
this into a program for you.

If you feel that I've earned my 75% of the question fee in
researching this and providing the options I've presented,
let me know, and I'll post a formal answer...

sublime1-ga


Searches done, via Google:

"excel to html"
://www.google.com/search?q=%22excel+to+html%22

"excel to html" web page template
://www.google.com/search?q=%22excel+to+html%22+web+page+template

I don't know how neat and tidy you want the output to be but I think
you may want to try this:

Create a separate WorkSheet and set it up so that the output is what
you'd want for a single row. Wherever there's a column, use a formula
of the type:
=INDEX('Data Sheet'!$A:$Z;'Data Sheet'!$AA$1;1)

The first argument is your data. Use $A:$B if you have 2 columns,
$A:$C for three, etc.
The second argument is the row. Use an absolute adress that's not part
of the data. This will be used later on in a small VBA script.
The third argument is the column. Select the proper column index.

Last step is to create a small VBA script. This script will simply
update the value of the cell that controls the fields selected, then
save the spreadsheet to a static HTML page.

For example:

Sub makepages()
    Dim wbs As Workbooks
    Dim wb As Workbook
    Dim item As Integer

    For item = 1 To 3
        ThisWorkbook.Worksheets("Sheet1").Activate
        Sheet1.Cells(1, 27) = item + 1
        Sheet2.Calculate
        Sheet2.Copy
    
        Set wbs = Workbooks
        Set wb = wbs.item(wbs.Count)
    
        wb.Sheets(1).SaveAs Filename:="Item" & item, FileFormat:=xlHtml
        wb.Close
    Next item
End Sub

Just assign the script to a macro or run it manually (Note: Press
Alt-F11 to go to VBA editor and cut-and-paste the script above; Press
F5 to execute)

Hope that helps,
- Alain