What is JSON?
JSON is an abbreviation used for JavaScript Object Notation which is a file format. JSON is used to store and exchange data over the network. The data from the server to the client can be shared through a JSON file.
The JSON file is easy to share and analyze. The file extension of a JSON document is “.json”. It is a standard file format based on text and is mainly used for the transmission of data on websites and web applications. JSON syntax is just like the JavaScript Object syntax. It can be read and understood easily. It is most widely used among web applications because it is very lightweight to work with. The JSON files can be loaded easily and a non-technical person can also understand them quickly.
The format that a JSON document is written as of key-value pair. JSON combined with Excel provides greater usability to import data. If you have a JSON file and you want to import it into Excel for better data analysis. Then it is possible to import the JSON file using Power Query. This article will look at this operation to import JSON to Excel. We’ll also see how you can use that imported data in Excel very efficiently.
What are the applications of JSON files?
Here are some useful applications of JSON documents below:
- JSON documents are mainly used to write programming code in programs that are specifically based on JavaScript, like Angular, Node, React, etc.
- JSON can adopt all programming languages, which is the main reason for its popularity.
- JSON files are useful when transferring data from the server to the client.
- JSON is a lightweight document, and that’s the reason it is mostly used for web communications.
- The JSON documents are shared on the network in a structured way.
- Various applications allow importing data from JSON format through APIs, making the data import very easy.
- The JSON format is very useful for serialization and transmission of data over the network.
What is Excel?
Excel is a software program developed by Microsoft. Excel is a very useful software to store data and is mainly used for the application of mathematical formulas on that data and calculation purposes. As data is very important for organizations, and that’s the reason Excel has become very productive for businesses. Excel is most widely used by businesses to analyze their data effectively.
The extension of Excel is “.xlsx”. Excel also provides the creation of charts, graphs, and various visualizations that helps to understand the data. You can also customize the UI of Excel based on your preferences.
You can even share an Excel file with collaborators to enable the updation of data from multiple users. This way, the Sales Managers take input from their team in a single Excel file. Excel also allows you to automate various data manipulation tasks through its inbuilt Visual Basic Application. You can use Visual Basic and write code to automate several tasks in Excel. This feature increases the productivity of using Excel.
Excel also gives you a bunch of options to import your data through the Web or other file formats. You can also import your data from a JSON file. In this article, we’ll see how you can import JSON documents in Excel for better analysis of data. Also, while you’re at it, check out this excel course online free to learn more about excel.
Applications of Excel
- Easy to Utilize Interface: The interface of MS Excel is easy to use, and anybody can understand the interface and usability of MS Excel quickly.
- Graphical Representation: It becomes very difficult to understand data in raw format. To solve this problem, Excel provides a graphical representation feature that you can use to visualize your data in a graphical format. This way, data can be analyzed very efficiently.
- Highly Supportive in Breaking Down Deals: Organizations use Microsoft Excel for their business needs. It helps businesses to examine the data of their sales and customers, which results in productive decision-making.
- Financial Modeling: The financial analysis of organizations is simplified by MS Excel, and the maintenance of financial records is made easy. It is very important to calculate the datasets in financial modeling, and Excel provides inbuilt formulas that are very useful for financial modeling.
- Accessibility of a Broad Scope of Functions: The functions in excel are very beneficial for evaluating equations and computation of mathematical formulas. The functions in excel can easily be modified according to the needs, and it also allows for the creation of new functions for the user.
- Future Development of Any Business: MS Excel is very important software that helps businesses to make future decisions. It helps in business analysis which helps organizations to find insights into the data.
How to Import JSON file in EXCEL?
There are various versions of MS Excel in the market that comes under MS Office like Office 2007, 2010, 2013 and so on. So, we’ll look at all these versions on how to open JSON files in Excel. Unfortunately, Office 2007 doesn’t give an option to import JSON files. But the later version of Excel allows it.
How you can import JSON files in Office 2010 version?
- Open a New Excel Workbook and look for the Power Query tab.
- In the Power Query tab, go to Other sources and then click blank query.
- Now, go to the JSON file on your computer and copy the path of the file.
- In MS Excel, it will give you a blank space for your query, there you need to paste the path copied from the JSON file.
- Click OK and it will load the JSON file in Excel Power Query. Now you can manipulate the data of the JSON file.
The version of MS Office introduced after Office 2010 was 2013. There were some changes in this version and let’s see how you can import your JSON files in Excel 2013.
- Open a New Excel Workbook and find the Power Query tab.
- Go to Other sources and then choose blank query.
- Go to Advanced editor in the Query Editor.
- Enter the query as the path of your JSON file.
Now, the latest version of Excel comes under Office 2019. The below steps define how to open a JSON file in Excel.
- Go to the Data tab in an Excel Workbook.
- Click on From File and then choose JSON.
- Now, choose the JSON file from your system and select OPEN.
- This will open the JSON file in Excel and now you can view the data.
Opening JSON From the Internet in Excel
The latest version of Excel also supports importing the data from the web. You can also import the JSON file from the Internet or by using an API call. To import the JSON from the internet, you need to follow these steps:
- Go to the Data tab in an Excel workbook.
- Select From Web option under the “Get & Transform Data” ribbon.
- After that an input box will appear in your window where you will have to enter the URL for the JSON file.
- Click OK and it will open the JSON file in Power Query first.
- Then you need to transform the data into a table and also apply other transformations to your data.
- After that when you Close & Apply from the Power Query, it will open the transformed data in Excel.
What is a JSON format?
JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation which means the data in this file represents every information as an object. And the data stored in the JSON file is lightweight. The JSON format is used by JSON files as “.json”. It is very useful while communicating between the server and the client. The text format in the JSON file is completely language-independent. However, anyone can easily understand a JSON file because of its simplicity. The other programming languages such as Python, C, C++, and others can also use JSON files for various purposes.
The JavaScript scripting language represents the data in a JSON file as a simple data structure by using associative arrays. These are called objects. By using these objects, the data can be differentiated easily.
So the format JSON is used by the JSON files to organize the data.
How to view JSON files?
As we know JSON is a document that contains data. So the JSON file is generally a text file just like other text files of Notepad or Notepad ++. The JSON file can be viewed in Notepad, Wordpad, or any other text editor. You can also view the JSON files in Python. To understand the data in a JSON file, it is best viewed in MS Excel. You can view the JSON document in an Excel workbook by importing the file available either on your system or on the internet.
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Conclusion
JSON documents are very useful for transmitting the data from the server to the client. And Excel is used to store the data in a spreadsheet. Excel allow us to apply formulas and functions to that data. JSON document is best viewed in Excel in a table format and Excel presents the data in a clean format. So, it is very useful to import a JSON file in Excel.
As we know, there are various versions of Excel available, but older versions of Excel don’t allow importing a JSON file. But, now you have the option to import any JSON document whether it is available locally on your machine or you can also import a JSON from the internet.
In this article, we talked about how productivity increases when working with JSON and Excel together. You can use the steps described above to import a JSON file in MS Excel. Learn more Excel tricks with us today!
FAQs
To import the JSON file to the latest version of Excel, you need to follow the below steps:
1. Open a new Excel workbook and go to the Data tab.
2. Select the option Get Data if you have the JSON file on your system and locate the path in the input field to get the JSON file.
3. If you want to import a JSON file available on the internet, then you need to choose From Web option in the Data tab.
4. After that you need to give the URL of the file and click OK.
5. It will load the JSON file in Microsoft Power Query where you can transform the JSON file before it gets opened in MS Excel.
6. After the transformation of your data in the JSON file, you need to close Power Query and it will load the data in the Excel workbook.
To import the JSON file in MS Excel 2016 version, follow the steps given below:
1. Open a New Excel workbook and go to the Data tab.
2. Choose the Get Data option and Choose From JSON.
3. After that specify the path to the JSON file and click OK.
4. It will fetch the file and take you to the Power Query Editor.
5. Now, you need to transform your JSON file to a table format.
6. And then you need to click on Close and Apply which will open the table in Excel.
To edit a JSON file in Excel, you need to import the file in Excel first. You can follow the steps discussed in this article to open a JSON file in Excel that will take you to Power Query Editor first. In the power query editor, you can edit the JSON file before importing it to Excel.
When you import the JSON file in Excel, it will open the Power Query editor and then you need to transform the JSON file to a table format. After all the transformations are done, you need to close the Power Query that will open the JSON table in MS Excel. Then you can save the table in CSV format from excel. This way, you can convert a JSON document into CSV.
To import the data in Excel, go to the Data tab. There you will find various options to import the data such as From text/CSV, From Web, and Get Data. You can choose any of the options relevant to you and import the data in Excel.
Yes, you can import the JSON data in MS Excel. But first, you need to convert the data into a table format which will be done in Power Query when you import the data. This way Excel reads the data from the JSON document.
The steps below show how you can convert a JSON file to readable:
1. There is a tool named JSON to String that you can use to convert the JSON file.
2. After opening the tool, you need to copy and paste the JSON Code to the text editor.
3. You can also upload the JSON file to the tool that will convert it into readable.
4. After that click on JSON to String button and then you will see the conversion is started.
5. After successful conversion of JSON to readable, you can save and share the string data.
Yes, you can use API to import data to excel. You need to go to the Data tab in Excel and choose the Get Data option. There you will see From other Sources option. Then you need to choose From Web from that list.
You will be asked for a URL where you can enter the API URL for the data you need to pull in Excel. This will import the data from the API call to Excel.
To access the API Data in Excel, follow the steps below:
1. Open MS Excel and go to the Data tab.
2. There you will see a bunch of options to get data, you need to choose From other sources drop-down list.
3. In the list, you will see an option From OData Data Feed. You will need to use this option.
4. After that you will be asked for a link URL or the path for the file.
5. You can enter the URL of the results of the API service.
6. Then if the API is public, you don’t need to enter the User Name and Password. But in the case of the private API call, you will have to enter the User Name and Password to connect to the API.
7. After successful connection to the API, you will be asked to fetch the data that you need in Excel.
8. Click Next and it will save the data connection and finish the dialogue box.
9. Lastly you need to choose if you want to view the data in the existing worksheet or the new worksheet. There are other options too and you can choose any of them based on your needs. And it will download the data from the API to your excel.
This way you can convert the API data to Excel.
