Is Google spreadsheets =ImportHtml() done locally or on a Google server?

Question

Immediate problem:

=ImportHtml("http://127.0.0.1/~themis/transactions.html";"table";1)

is placed into a cell. The page exists; I can open it in Chrome. My guess is that it's done remotely as the error is "the data could not be retrieved".

My original problem: I want this original page from google finance. However, that table is created by javascript; using that original URL fails because the table doesn't exist and ImportHtml doesn't execute javascript. So I open the page with Chrome's developer tools, copy the root DOM as HTML, and write it to the above transactions.html file. Hacky, but I don't need live data.

Any ideas on a solution to either the immediate or original problem?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 18 '11 at 22:46

0

You're correct, all the Google spreadsheet operations are done remotely.

It does appear that you could use the ImportXML spreadsheet function along with the GoogleFinance Data API to get your transaction information into a spreadsheet.

answered Jul 18 '11 at 22:46

mjhm

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Thanks. I'll try the GoogleFinance Data API. – themis Jul 25 '11 at 22:20
Is this still the case on the new version of Google Sheets? – cjm2671 Jan 16 '15 at 08:24

Rubén · Answer 2 · 2022-10-28T01:35:28.127

Since several years ago, Google Sheets has the GOOGLEFINANCE function, so IMPORTHTML and "hacky" workarounds to import Google Finance data into Google spreadsheet might no longer required.

Regarding IMPORTHTML being done locally or on the server, one part is done on the server, the one that connects to the resource host, the on the client side is done the "recalculation", distributing the data across the cells, etc.

Debugging ImportHTML

Reference

Add financial data to a spreadsheet

Is Google spreadsheets =ImportHtml() done locally or on a Google server?

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