Tabular data on websites

You sometimes need to represent tabular data like lists of contacts, inventories of equipment, or public research data, but tables can be challenging to create on websites. Not only are they difficult to set up correctly in website editors, they’re complicated to style and often have serious display issues. Phone users in particular have trouble seeing tables on websites since the data is not reflowable and needs to be crushed down to their screen size.

You’re likely already creating your tabular data in Excel and then trying to adapt it to your website; however, that’s not necessary anymore! You can just use Excel as part of your website.

The benefits of Excel

Using Excel on your website doesn’t just make your workflow simpler–It also has built-in accessibility features to help all users create and view spreadsheets effectively. These features include the Accessibility Checker, support for screen readers, and options for customizing the display for better visibility. By storing your tabular data as Excel sheets in a Microsoft cloud service like OneDrive, you ensure users always see the tabular data you’re expecting while also allowing them to adjust how it’s displayed to meet their needs. It’s also far easier to update than T4, and updates happen instantly!

Your online Excel sheets can also be permission-controlled unlike files in T4. You can limit them to only be viewable by specific people or groups, or set a password.

Start using Excel

To share your tabular data as an online Excel sheet, we recommend using Microsoft OneDrive as your home inferface. It’s simple to remember: onedrive.mst.edu. OneDrive will allow you to create Office docs and share files, but will also let you organize them into folders. These folders can be shared with your coworkers so that multiple people can edit the documents. They’ll also let you create public share links to individual documents or entire folders of documents that you can then link to from T4.

onedrive.mst.edu

Create a folder in OneDrive

  1. Log in at https://onedrive.mst.edu
  2. Click “Create or upload” button in the upper left
  3. Choose “Folder”
  4. Name your folder after your website (e.g. marketing.mst.edu) and choose a color

Edit the folder contents with coworkers

  1. Find your folder under “My Files” and hover over it
  2. Click the “Share” arrow icon that appears to the right of the folder name
  3. Add your coworkers to the “Add a name, group, or email” field
  4. Click the eye icon to the right of the names and change the setting to “Can edit”
  5. Write a quick message to your coworkers in the message box letting them know what you’re sharing. This message will be sent in an email notification to everyone specified letting them know they can now edit the folder.
  6. Click “Send”

Create a new Excel sheet

  1. Find your folder under “My Files” and click into it
  2. Click the “Create or upload” button in the upper right and choose “Excel workbook”

Please be sure to follow best practices for making accessible spreadsheets.

Upload an existing Excel sheet

  1. Find your folder under “My Files” and click into it
  2. Either drag your Excel file into the folder, or click the “Create or upload” button and select “Files upload”

Please be sure to follow best practices for making accessible spreadsheets.

Get a link to use in TerminalFour

  1. Find the file you want to link to in OneDrive and hover over it
  2. Click the “Share” arrow icon that appears to the right of the file name
  3. Next to the “Copy link” button, click the “Link settings” gear icon
  4. A dialog will pop up that lets you select whom the link should work for. For a public file, choose “Anyone”.
  5. Ensure “Can view” is selected under “More settings”. It should be by default. Just be sure it’s not set to “Can edit” since then anyone could edit your file.
  6. Click “Apply”
  7. Click “Copy link”

Find a link you’ve already created

  • Find the file in OneDrive and hover over it
  • Click the “Share” arrow icon that appears to the right of the file name
  • Click the bubbles in the lower left of the share dialog. These represent users who can see and/or edit the file. It may just be one bubble with three dots in it for “Anyone”.
  • Switch to the “Links” tab
  • Each of the links that lead to your file will be listed here, along with the permissions assigned to that link (e.g. “Anyone with the link can view”). Click the “Copy” button.

Linking to Excel sheets in T4

Once you’ve copied your share link to your file in OneDrive, you can link to it from anywhere you’d normally place a link in T4. This includes site menus!

When you click the chain icon to insert a link, just choose “Link to external site” and paste your link from OneDrive.