Extracting sections of HTML from cell containing a lot of characters

[joshherby]

Hi All,

Long time reader of the forum. First time poster.

I have a file containing 5000+ lines of HTML eBay descriptions that I would like to scrape unique values from so I can insert these into an updated mobile friendly description.

I need to look through a big section of code and remove Titles, Images and Bullet point descriptions from each line and insert these into cells.

My first idea was to use find and replace to remove everything before and after what i needed in each cell. I quickly realized this was not possible due to the character count limit of find and replace.

Can any of you guys more experienced in this area think of a solution?

Appreciate the help.

Josh

[AliGW]

Welcome to the forum!

Will you please attach a sample Excel workbook?

1. Make sure that your sample data are REPRESENTATIVE of your real data. The use of unrepresentative data is very frustrating and can lead to long delays in reaching a solution.

2. Make sure that your desired solution is also shown (mock up the results manually).

3. Make sure that all confidential data is removed or replaced with dummy data first (e.g. names, addresses, E-mails, etc.).

4. Try to avoid using merged cells as they cause lots of problems.

Unfortunately the attachment icon doesn't work at the moment, so to attach an Excel file you have to do the following: just before posting, scroll down to Go Advanced and then scroll down to Manage Attachments. Now follow the instructions at the top of that screen.

Please pay particular attention to point 2 (above): without an idea of your intended outcomes, it is often very difficult to offer appropriate advice.

[joshherby]

Hi AliGW,

I've attached an example of the file. The actual file is simply 4998 more lines of the example.

What i need to do for column E1 is to extract information after point:

Title Name</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="Description">

but before:

</td></tr><tr><td class="Sub_heading">Description</td>

Leaving the title: Pack of 10 x Vintage Antique Decorative Filament GLS 60W A60 B22 / BC (Sylvania 23870) in column E1.

I'd then drag this formula down across all 5000 lines in the spreadsheet so that all the titles were extracted.

I hope this makes sense

[AliGW]

Based on the two examples, try this:

=LEFT(SUBSTITUTE(MID(E2,FIND("Description",E2)+13,99999),"</td>",REPT(" ",9)),FIND(REPT(" ",9),SUBSTITUTE(MID(E2,FIND("Description",E2)+13,99999),"</td>",REPT(" ",9))))

[joshherby]

Thanks for your reply.

The formula works great for this first two lines, thank you.

However as I drag this down I arrive at some slightly different HTML and it causes an error. This is no fault of your formula, this is because the HTML slightly changes.

I have attached an example of 30 lines for your reference this.

Any idea what could be done to correct everything from this sheet?

Many thanks,

Josh

[AliGW]

I suspected this would be the case. Feel free to attach another workbook with more sample data - you haven't yet - but it won't be me looking at it, sorry - I don't have any more time for this today, but there are others who will be able to help.

In future, please always provide a substantial and realistic set of sample data, so that time isn't wasted on solutions that don't work properly on your real data. Thanks.

[joshherby]

Ah, must've forgot the second attachment. It's now attached.

Thanks for your assistance so far. You've been very helpful.

[AliGW]

No, it isn't! The only file attached to this thread is the original one with just two lines of data.

[joshherby]

my mistake, please see attached.

[joshherby]

Managed to finish this myself with variations of the above code and by using find and replace: <*>

****Solved***

Thanks!

[AliGW]

Well done!

If that takes care of your original question, please select Thread Tools from the menu link above and mark this thread as SOLVED. Thanks.