Publish to Cloud

This is the online help page for the Publish to Cloud feature that uploads your web form or calculator on the web in just a few seconds.  

When you have converted a spreadsheet, you want to publish it on the web. SpreadsheetConverter comes with built-in, high-performance web hosting on the globally distributed Amazon S3 infrastructure with superior performance, extreme reliability and massive scalability. Over a dozen server locations around the globe ensure that your calculator always is within easy reach of your global audience.

With Publish to Cloud, we offer 7-day test publishing for free to all our users. If you have a paid license, you can also publish calculators permanently for production purposes.

Note: If you prefer to use one of your own servers, users of WordPress can use a plugin to import spreadsheets into WordPress. If you want to upload with FTP to your own web server, there is a tutorial on how to upload forms and calculators using FTP.

Convert the spreadsheet

Before you can upload the spreadsheet, you must convert it. It is not possible to upload an unconverted spreadsheet, or a spreadsheet that is not opened in Excel.

Select the Test or Production location

For every spreadsheet you create, there are two upload locations: Test and Production.

You can make changes to a spreadsheet and invite other people to test it in the Test location. The Test version is automatically deleted after 7 days. If you don’t have a paid license for SpreadsheetConverter, you can only use Test links.

When testing is complete and you want to activate the new version as the live Production version, simply select to replace the Production version instead. The basic ability to create production links is included in all paid licenses except Node.js.

Production links are always the same, every time you upload the same spreadsheet, and never expire. If you wish to create an additional permanent link, e.g. for a different flavor, you need to rename the spreadsheet or a copy of it before you convert and upload the spreadsheet with the new name.

Start the upload

• Test: Use the Test in Cloud option in the ribbon to initiate an upload of the most recently converted web page for the currently open spreadsheet to the Test location. Verify that you are uploading the most recent conversion of the spreadsheet, in the intended flavor.
• Production: When you’ve finished testing the new version, it’s time to update the production version. Use the Publish to Cloud option in the ribbon. Verify that you are uploading the most recent conversion of the spreadsheet, in the intended flavor.

Wait for the upload to complete

While the calculator is being uploaded, a message appears in the Publish to Cloud window.

Get the link to the uploaded calculator

After you have published the calculator to the cloud, you must save the links you get to it. We provide four different types of links:

• Full link: This is a standard web link that contains the exact server, folder and file information required for a web browser to open the calculator you just uploaded. A drawback with the full link is that it can be over a hundred characters long, which means it may not fit on a single line in an e-mail or on a web page. That is why we also offer the
• Short link: This is a typical “shortened” link in the form https:/tinyurl.com/y3otra5n. This link is much easier to use in e-mails and on web pages because it never breaks like long links sometimes do.
• QR code: If you want to publish your link in a format that is easy to use with a tablet or cell phone, you can of course use the short link above – it takes much less time to type. But why type at all? It’s even easier to click on the QR code symbol. This creates a QR code image that contains the link, then copies this image to the clipboard. All you have to do is to paste it into an e-mail or web page. Users with mobile devices simply scan the code with their camera to open the calculator on their device.
• Iframe: If you want to embed your calculator in a web page, it’s very easy to do so with an iframe. The iframe works very much like adding an image to your page, but instead of showing a static image it displays the live calculator you just uploaded. Just click on the iframe symbol to have the full HTML source code for the iframe copied to the clipboard. Then move to WordPress or whatever content management system you are using, insert a “custom HTML” block or switch to HTML edit mode and paste the HTML for the iframe into the page where you want it.  Use the width and height parameters in the iframe source to adjust the size of the iframe. Below, there are links to more specific embedding instructions for some of the most common content management systems.

If you need other link formats later, just convert and upload the calculator again.

Removing an uploaded calculator

To remove previously uploaded calculators, do the following:

1. Rename the original calculator, e.g. saved_version_of_my_calculator.xlsx.
2. Start Excel and create a new, empty calculator.
3. In any cell, e.g. A1, insert the text “This calculator has been removed.”.
4. In any other cell, e.g. A2, insert a calculation, e.g. =if(A1=””,””,””) since this is required by SpreadsheetConverter.
5. Save the spreadsheet in the same folder and under the same name as the original calculator, e.g. “my_calculator.xlsx”.
6. Convert the new calculator with SpreadsheetConverter.
7. Upload the new version of the spreadsheet with Publish to Cloud. It will entirely replace the original calculator and display the “removed” message when someone tries to start it.

Known issues

Usage fees and limitations

There is currently no limit to the number of calculators and forms you may upload, or their combined size. As the use of this feature grows, we may introduce usage fees and/or limits.

Expect a small delay when you replace a previous version

When you update an existing calculator, some advanced performance optimization techniques may retain the old version for up to 15 minutes.

Learn more

Some of our tutorials use Publish to Cloud:

• Create a simple sales tax calculator