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Hyperlinks in tables?

  • August 1, 2019
  • 6 replies
  • 68 views
N

Hello. I have a spreadsheet file. The first column contains hyperlinks.
I can only import .csv files into Airtable, and during the conversion all the hyperlinks become plain text, but I need to preserve the link

I have tried customising the field type in Airtable to “Single Line Text” and “Hyperlink” but the former converts the link to plain text, and the latter tries to be clever (if my hyperlink text is “hyperlink” it tries to create a link to hyperlink[DOT]com instead of retaining the actual link).

Am I missing a trick, or does Airtable not support inputting hyperlinks yet? There are lots of records, so I don’t want to have to try and separate the link text and URL into two different columns manually, and don’t know enough code to separate them out with a script.
Thanks.

    6 replies

    Kamille_Parks11
    Forum|alt.badge.img+27

    You’ll need to extract the url within Excel or whatever you were using before importing it into Airtable.

    https://excel.tips.net/T003281_Extracting_URLs_from_Hyperlinks.html
    ^ that page provides instructions on how to get a new column which will retrieve the url from the hyperlink. When you import the CSV Airtable will read that field properly.

    N
    • Neil_Webb
    • Author
    • New Participant
    • August 2, 2019

    Thanks Kamille - yes ,still trying to work out how to do that in Numbers :slightly_smiling_face: Shame - I was hoping I’d missed something and that Airtable may have the ability to accept hyperlinks. I appreciate your reply :slightly_smiling_face:

    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+20
    • M_k
    • Inspiring
    • August 2, 2019

    Thanks Kamille - yes ,still trying to work out how to do that in Numbers :slightly_smiling_face: Shame - I was hoping I’d missed something and that Airtable may have the ability to accept hyperlinks. I appreciate your reply :slightly_smiling_face:


    Hi @Neil_Webb

    I searched the web and I managed to find some information about creating a hyperlink in Numbers 2018 version, so I think it’s the latest version.

    You could do a smal test run with a few records and see if it works.

    This is the link for using Numbers:
    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH26056?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

    The other thing is, you might be able to automate the process by using something like Integromat. They have a forum online.

    Hope this helps.

    Mary Kay

    N
    • Neil_Webb
    • Author
    • New Participant
    • August 4, 2019

    Hi @Neil_Webb

    I searched the web and I managed to find some information about creating a hyperlink in Numbers 2018 version, so I think it’s the latest version.

    You could do a smal test run with a few records and see if it works.

    This is the link for using Numbers:
    https://support.apple.com/kb/PH26056?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

    The other thing is, you might be able to automate the process by using something like Integromat. They have a forum online.

    Hope this helps.

    Mary Kay


    Thank you so much Mary Kay :slightly_smiling_face: Unfortunately what I need is the opposite …

    I have thousands of hyperlinks already in Numbers documents, and because Airtable can’t handle hyperlinks I need to somehow separate the URL from the text (not just make the link non-active, because then I would lose all the URL details). I know how to do this manually, but I have too many links to make this a manual process - I’d love to use Airtable, otherwise.

    M
    Forum|alt.badge.img+20
    • M_k
    • Inspiring
    • August 4, 2019

    Hi @Neil_Webb

    If that’s the case, I believe that Integromat (which automatee processes) will be able to do this. There are scenarios that can be created to place data into Airtable, from Google Sheets but you would have to check into it. If you are interested, check out Integromat’s community forum.

    Mary

    P.S. You might want to ask @Justin_Barrett, in this forum, he has experience with Integromat, so he might be able to let you know if it can be done.

    Mk

    Justin_Barrett
    Forum|alt.badge.img+21

    Hi @Neil_Webb

    If that’s the case, I believe that Integromat (which automatee processes) will be able to do this. There are scenarios that can be created to place data into Airtable, from Google Sheets but you would have to check into it. If you are interested, check out Integromat’s community forum.

    Mary

    P.S. You might want to ask @Justin_Barrett, in this forum, he has experience with Integromat, so he might be able to let you know if it can be done.

    Mk


    I appreciate the nod, @M_k, but I don’t think that Integromat can help in this case. Numbers is a Mac desktop application. While certain Mac apps like Numbers can store things in the cloud (Apple’s iCloud in this case), there isn’t currently a way to connect to iCloud via Integromat (at least not that I’m aware of).

    @Neil_Webb There may be a way to use the AppleScript to do the job, though. I’ve only dabbled in AppleScript a small amount, but my gut says that it may be possible to parse the Numbers document and create a CSV file that would place the URL and the hyperlink text into separate fields. It would take some time to test this, and I’ve got a fairly full plate right now, but you might try messing with that option if you’re willing.

    EDIT: There’s also the option of exporting from Numbers as an Excel file, then import the Excel file into Google Sheets, and use Integromat to parse that and move things into Airtable.

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