MS Excel — Getting Started with User Defined Functions (“UDFs”)
Extracting URLs from Links is One Great Example!
Recently, I have started sharing frequent tips over on LinkedIn.
Not full blown “how to” posts, but sharing information that I hope might spark someone to learn a topic or rethink a process.
If you use Excel, understand User Defined Functions (“UDFs”) and how they can make your life easier!
This is not something I use frequently, but awareness of this has simplified my Excel life many times over the years.
An example?
Extracting web URLs from links in Excel.
✅ The process is explained in detail here —
In the images below, you can see that I copy / paste a playlist from YouTube (thanks to Mike “excelisfun” Girvin for the content) and extract the URLs using the “GiveMeURL” function.
Without that function, Excel requires each link to be done one at a time.
Not. An. Option.
Here’s How It Works
Go to a playlist page on YouTube. Highlight, copy and paste the complete list into Excel.
The pasted format in Excel is below. As you can see, I have hyperlinks that I need to extract the URLs from.
No problem. That’s where the “GiveMeURL” function goes to work!
The URLs are extracted once you enter the function and copy it down — any cells with hyperlinks (in column A) will drop a URL into Column B.
The result is the start of creating a basic user “checklist” for a team I am distributing the playlist to.
Stay tuned — that will be covered in upcoming tips! 👍🏻 Next up is using Power Query to convert the list to a clean format for use in creating the checklist!
Are there any UDFs you have used and recommend?
