When I try to encode a HTML anchor link in CSV file cell it becomes corrupted and not readable by Excel.
Is there some sort of non-HTML solution or format to encode
What worked for me in Excel 2003 - output to your CSV the statement:
CELLVALUE="=HYPERLINK("+QM+URLCONTENTS+QM+";"+QM+"URLDISPLAYNAME"+QM+")"
; use in the hyperlink. I've found the comma not to work for me in Excel 2003."=HYPERLINK("URLCONTENTS";"URLDISPLAYNAME")"where:
CELLVALUE is the output written to the CSVQM is the ASCII value of ["] -> (ASCII 34)URLCONTENTS is the full URL to the page you want to link to.
-URLDISPLAYNAME is the text you see in the Excel cell.
File/Properties > Tab Summary > Field Hyperlink Base.
Use as fieldvalue something like http://www.SITENAME.com/SUB_LOCATION/../SUB_LOCATION that sets your starting point so you can click it in Excel. Of course, you don't have to use SUB_LOCATIONs if the sitename itself already will resolve successfully for your relative path.
What I couldn't find is how to make the links automatically underlined in Excel. From other tips found in this article:
Format manually all linkcells as underlined and darkblue (for example) and then the standard functionality appears with already visited links turning into another color.