With Microsoft Excel, it's easy to publish interactive data and charts to the Web. For instance, you can create a worksheet that uses Excel functions to calculate loan payment information, create a chart that compares the total interest and principal paid, and then publish the loan calculator and the chart so that Web users can interact with them. Users can change the loan amount, the interest rate, and the length of the loan, for example, and watch the chart update—all without having Excel installed.

The following is an example of a Web page that calculates loan information. The page uses an interactive spreadsheet and chart that was published from Excel and then customized in FrontPage.

When you publish worksheet data or a chart to the Web, you can choose to use Microsoft Office Web Components to create spreadsheets, charts, and PivotTable® lists that operate on a Web page. The Office Web Components are available with Microsoft Office. If you want to customize the page, you can open it in another design program such as FrontPage. In FrontPage, you can add a theme, backgrounds, logos, and links to other pages, and incorporate the page in a new or existing Web site.

 Note   In order for Web users to view and work with any of the Microsoft Office Web Component controls, they must have the Office Web Components installed. They can do this by installing Microsoft Office or, if their company has an Office site license, by downloading the Office Web Components from their corporate intranet. Users must also have Microsoft Internet Explorer version 4.01 or later to work with Office Web Component controls.

The following parts of this article show you how to create a page like the previous example:

• Step 1: Prepare your chart and supporting data
• Step 2: Publish the chart and supporting data
• Step 3: Format and customize the page by using FrontPage
• Step 4: Test and post