| LiveWebs is designed to enable Excel
97/2000 users to publish multiple Excel spreadsheets in a workbook to an internet or
intranet site with the maximum of automation and the minimum of effort. LiveWebs
Markets is designed to enable users to do the same thing on a timed basis, appropriate
where quasi real-time or frequently updated data is being used in the spreadsheet.
LiveWebs Markets for example would be used by a portfolio manager wanting to web
publish a client's portfolio position, say once per minute, or once per hour, based on
Excel spreadsheet data calculating off ever-changing Reuters or Bloomberg price feeds. |
Both
flavours of LiveWebs come in the form of an Excel Add-In which bolts directly into your
normal Excel working environment on your PC at work or at home. As such, it is a
'client-side' application. |
| LiveWebs delivers
five main capabilities: |
 | FAITHFUL CONVERSION |
|
LiveWebs attempts to convert a
spreadsheet range or chart as faithfully as possible into a web/HTML page. Ideally, you
should hardly be able to tell the difference between the two. (Experience with standard
HTML authoring packages should testify to the fact that this isn't necessarily a trivial
task). |
| LIMITED FORMATTING CONTROL |
|
LiveWebs enables you to globally scale
font sizes up or down proportionately, define table widths, and resize graphs for
publication |
| NAVIGATIONAL STRUCTURE |
|
With LiveWebs, you can easily create
automatic Navigation bars. You may often find yourself publishing several pages of related
spreadsheet material and with LiveWebs you can make sure the viewer has the ability to
easily navigate between pages you deem to be thematically related |
| AUTOMATIC FILE TRANSPORT |
|
LiveWebs transports your converted
spreadsheets/web/HTML pages to the network site you need to publish them to - i.e.to your
company's intranet or to your or your company's internet site. |
| EFFICIENT AND EASY MANAGEMENT |
|
LiveWebs provides an efficient management
environment for the entire process, the intended goal being that it is achieved time and
time again with minimal effort and alteration - maximum simplicity and automation for
maximum result. |
| It is also important to stress that
LiveWebs is a tool designed very much with you, the spreadsheet user, in mind and has been
designed with the benefit of using spreadsheets in business for several years. That
means that:
| no programming skills are required |
| the product is designed to offer just the right amount of
flexibility/configurability to get the job done, without overloading you with endless
'tweaking' fields which would confuse the user with too much choice for too little
incremental gain. |
|
|
| How do you make it
happen? |
| You access LiveWebs functionality
exclusively in Excel through the familiar means of an extra menu and/or toolbar and a multi-tabbed dialog box. |
| So, you have an Excel workbook which
contains one or more ranges you want to publish as separate web pages... |
| Your first step is to name those ranges
with the prefix 'HTML'. This makes a range 'visible' to LiveWebs which pulls it into
the Workbook Settings Tab of the LiveWebs Dialog
box. If you have LiveWebs Markets, you can set the updating schedule here also. |
|
| You make any adjustments to how that range
will be dealt with by LiveWebs on the HTML Range Settings
Tab. |
|
| Advanced LiveWebs users can set up Table
Splits (a LiveWebs construct) on the Table Splits Settings Tab.
Table Splits enable you to break a large spreadsheet down into more visually digestible
onscreen chunks. |
|
| You tell LiveWebs where to transport your
converted ranges to in the Network Settings Tab. |
|
| Hit 'OK' and go view the results |
| Additionally, you can also name a range
with the prefix 'HTMLNAV' which will allow you to append it to the top (or bottom) of
several of your converted pages to act as a navigation bar. |
| Once you've set up a workbook with your
'HTML'-prefixed ranges, whenever you change the numbers in the workbook, you can update
all the web pages published from it at a single press of the button. When you are a little
familiar with LiveWebs, you will find you can set up a mini Excel-based intranet in a half
hour flat. |
| With the control and flexibility that
LiveWebs offers, the user can share any amount of Excel-based information with anyone
accessing a company intranet or web site, as desired. |
| Many Excel users will already know that in
Excel 97 (i.e. Excel 8), there is an item on the File menu, called "Save As
HTML…", which allows the user to convert one or more ranges in a spreadsheet
into a web page without needing to know how to code HTML. |
|
| However, those users who have used this menu
item will also be aware of how inflexible and laborious a process this is. For users
unfamiliar with this menu item, see the LiveWebs Features
List and view a table showing the shortcomings of this menu item and how
LiveWebs gives users the ability to overcome them. |
