Excel + Search Engine?

Question

is there any way a spreadsheet program (like Excel) can communicate with a search engine (like Google or WolframAlpha ?)

The perfect method would be a excel macro that could ask feed the search engine and return results. Simply the number of hits would be sufficient.

Second best would be a search engine that could import .csv type files and save results.

Does anyone know of such a product?

Answer 1

Yes. It is possible. I successfully automated Internet Explorer in excel to get aviation weather into the excel sheet. Search on Google to automate internet explorer and you will want to get the innertext retuned with what you are looking for. This is an excerpt of that code to get the aviation weather and field elevation for a particular airport. The code is written in VBA. You can load a CSV file into excel and then loop through the records running the macro for the results.

On Error GoTo errHandler
Dim adPost() As Byte, strPage As String
Set ie = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")
'ie.Visible = True

adPost = StrConv("station_ids=" & strAirport & "&std_trans=1, ", vbFromUnicode)

ie.navigate "http://aviationweather.gov/adds/metars/index.php", , , adPost, _
  "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" & vbCrLf

Do While ie.busy: DoEvents: Loop
Do While ie.ReadyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop

Dim strText As String, strElevation As String, strAPName As String, strAirportInfo As String

strText = ie.document.body.innertext

Debug.Print strText
strText = Right(strText, Len(strText) - InStr(1, strText, strAirport) + 1)

ie.navigate "http://www.airnav.com/airport/" & strAirport
Do While ie.busy: DoEvents: Loop
Do While ie.ReadyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop
ie.Visible = True

strAirportInfo = ie.document.body.innertext
strElevation = Left(strAirportInfo, 500)
strAPName = Left(strElevation, 150)
If InStr(1, strElevation, "Elevation") > 0 Then
  strElevation = Right(strElevation, Len(strElevation) - InStr(1, strElevation, "Elevation") + 1)
  strElevation = Left(strElevation, InStr(1, strElevation, "."))
  strElevation = Left(strElevation, InStr(1, strElevation, " ft.") - 1)
  strElevation = Right(strElevation, Len(strElevation) - InStr(1, strElevation, " "))
Else
  strElevation = ""
End If

Debug.Print strAPName
If InStr(1, strAPName, strAirport) > 0 Then
  strAPName = Right(strAPName, Len(strAPName) - InStr(1, strAPName, strAirport) - 3)
  strAPName = Left(strAPName, InStr(1, strAPName, "GOING TO") - 1)
  strAPName = Trim(Replace(strAPName, vbCrLf, " "))
Else
  strAPName = strAirport
End If

Answer 2

They have something that is extremely close and allows export: http://www.google.com/squared

If that isn't quite what your looking for, then wbeard's solution, while requiring coding, is a very good answer