Publish an excel worksheet as an HTML file using a command button - vba

Question

So I have tons of data in my workbook that I need to pass on to my users in a way that allows them to interact with the workbook..., but also limits what they can actually do. So I have made it so they can access certain pages to Add needed data, then I've given access to a menu page so they can run a report.
This report I have found is best if it's an html page.
To that end, I have tried several different ways, save as...and publish. I like the publish version, but I can not for the life of me get this working. All the samples I see, appear to be the same. Here is the line of code in question:
ActiveWorkbook.PublishObjects.Add(xlSourceSheet, ActiveWorkbook.Path & ".htm, "Sheet1", "", xlHtmlStatic, "", "Report Title").Publish True
Every time I get a run time error '1004':
Method 'Publish' of object 'PublishObject' failed
I have the above line of code in a sub, am I missing something? Do I need to set up the publish differently? Thanks for any ideas.

Answer 1

I have had a similar mysterious problem that sometimes it (.Publish) works and sometimes it doesn't, when I try publish.
However, I think the problem might be, in cases when it doesn't work right off the bat, to first save the relevant region as a webpage so that it exists already on the server. After that region has been saved at least once (manually or else maybe with .SaveAs .. see below), then the publish might work.
Here is an example of how I get this to work more consistently, something to convey the structure that works for me:
wkb=ActiveWorkbook.Name 'save wb for later access
url="http://a.com/b.htm" 'save to Internet
sheetname="c"
Sheets(sheetname).Range("d1:e2").Select 'activating sheet may be necessary
On Error Resume Next 'anticipate error to handle it
'Now comes the publish line the first time... which may work.. or not
ActiveWorkbook.PublishObjects.Add(xlSourceRange,url,sheetname,"d1:e2",xlHtmlStatic,"blah","moreblah").Publish (True) 'may fail to create page on website if page didn't already exist
theerr=Err.Number
On Error GoTo 0 'back to default error handling (none)
If theerr <> 0 Then 'if here perhaps because page nonexistent
'msgbox "maybe add warning here [FYI]"
Sheets("dummysheetwithlittleornodata").Copy 'will create workbook
On Error Resume Next
ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs url 'may fail to create webpage first time
ActiveWorkbook.saveAs url 'twice needed for some reason sometimes. [works for me]
On Error GoTo 0
'with fresh dummy html page created, now publish should hopefully work.. let's try again
ActiveWorkbook.Close savechanges:=False 'clean up and avoid popup
Workbooks(wkb).Activate 'get back to correct wkb
Sheets(sheetname).Range("d1:e2").Select
ActiveWorkbook.PublishObjects.Add(xlSourceRange,url,sheetname,"d1:e2",xlHtmlStatic,"blah","moreblah").Publish (True) 'hopefully if failed first time, now it succeeded ! good luck.
End If
The above code structure has allowed me to solve several publish problems I was having. All the techniques together have been enough so far to allow me to save a range from a sheet as a webpage (to server I have write access to) without having to do anything manually (like a manual save or even click on popup). Good Luck.
[The different non-obvious techniques include activating a range before trying a range publish, using the error handling approach and anticipating failure at certain points, the 2x saveas to compensate for mysterious inconsistent failures when using one saveas only, closing and getting back to original workbook cleanly, and using saveas to "guarantee" page exists in form that will make publish to succeed more consistently.]