Microsoft Excel — ASAP Utilities Add-In — My Top Uses (#1)
#1 — Work with Active URLS
Introduction
I am a huge fan of the ASAP Utilities Excel-Addin tool. I can’t imagine using Excel without the functionality ASAP provides.
I am going to highlight my most frequent / favorite uses. The tool has not only made many tasks I need to perform in Excel much easier, but allowed me to do some things that prior to ASAP were impossible (at least for me…).
The first use I am going to highlight is working with Web URL’s which comes up periodically.
I use InstaPaper (see my prior Medium post) and periodically download an HTML format file of my saved content. I like to extract this information for permanent reference in a data file I maintain.
Step by Step — Download and Convert Weblinks
Here we go:
In this case, I am going to copy the links into Excel and “shape” them to provide the data structure I need. Here is the HTML file (downloaded from InstaPaper) opened in MS Word.
Copy the links and paste them into Excel. A total of 400+ links are pasted into Excel.
Next, I want to EXTRACT the URL links from this and place them in the column to the right of the description.
- Select “ASAP Utilities → Web → Extract hyperlinks…”
Ok, that’s done. Now, I want to REMOVE THE HYPERLINK from the description (I just want a TEXT description). Then, I want the URLs to be an ACTIVE HYPERLINK that I can click on and go the the referenced content.
- Select the rows, select “ASAP Utilities → Web → 7. Remove all hyperlinks from selected cells”
Now, convert the URLs an active hyperlink.
- Select “ASAP Utilities → Web → 5. Activate hyperlinks (create from cell values)…”
Done — now the data is ready for the next steps!
This data set gets added to my master data file containing content I have accumulated over the last 5 years. The content list is easily searchable and is an invaluable resource for my client sessions, presentations and speaking events.
There you go. Certainly not an everyday or conventional use of ASAP Utilities, but it is ONE feature that I have integrated into my workflow and I can’t imagine not having it!
About Don
Don Tomoff is a “recovering CPA”, who is passionate about helping professionals and organizations keep up and adapt to the changing business world that we operate in.
One lesson learned over the years is that all of us, regardless of organization type or size, struggle with similar issues — primarily information management and presentation, and effective use of our time. Let’s change that…one person at a time!
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