Website to Text in Google Sheets
Formula
Pull page text by the row. =VERVE("websitetotext", A2) fetches each URL and returns clean text and metadata — Sheets or Excel.
=VERVE("websitetotext", A2)=VERVE.CALL("websitetotext", A2)A2 holds the url you're looking up. Drag the formula down and each row resolves on its own.
With literal values
Nothing has to come from a cell — typed values work the same way.
=VERVE("websitetotext", "https://www.bbc.com/news")Inputs
Required inputs are positional, in the order below. Everything else is passed as a "name", value pair after them — the same shape as SUMIFS.
| Input | Type | Where it goes | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
urlRequired | string | argument 2 | The URL of the website to convert to text (e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news) |
What lands in your sheet
With no "field" pair the formula spills the whole response as two columns — field name on the left, value on the right — starting at the cell you typed in. Make sure the cells below and to the right are empty.
Pulling one value
Add a "field" pair to get a single cell back instead of a table. The field name is the dot-path from the table below.
=VERVE("websitetotext", A2, "field", "description")=VERVE.CALL("websitetotext", A2, "field", "description")Available fields
| Use as "field" | Type | Example cell value | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
date | object | null | Publication or last modified date of the webpage |
description | string | Use Amazon EC2 for scalable computing capacity in the AWS Cloud so you can develop and deploy applications without hardware constraints. | Meta description extracted from website content |
title | string | What is Amazon EC2? | Primary page title extracted from HTML |
title_alt | string | What is Amazon EC2? | Alternative title extracted from page content |
text | string | Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) provides on-demand, scalable computing capacity in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud. Using Amazon EC2 reduces hardware costs so you can develop and deploy applications faster. You can use Amazon EC2 to launch as many or as few virtual servers as you need, configure security and networking, and manage storage. You can add capacity (scale up) to handle compute-heavy tasks, such as monthly or yearly processes, or spikes in website traffic. When usage decreases, you can reduce capacity (scale down) again. An EC2 instance is a virtual server in the AWS Cloud. When you launch an EC2 instance, the instance type that you specify determines the hardware available to your instance. Each instance type offers a different balance of compute, memory, network, and storage resources. For more information, see the Amazon EC2 Instance Types Guide. Amazon EC2 provides the following high-level features: Amazon EC2 supports the processing, storage, and transmission of credit card data by a merchant or service provider, and has been validated as being compliant with Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS). For more information about PCI DSS, including how to request a copy of the AWS PCI Compliance Package, see PCI DSS Level 1. You can create and manage your Amazon EC2 instances using the following interfaces: Amazon EC2 provides the following pricing options: For a complete list of charges and prices for Amazon EC2 and more information about the purchase models, see Amazon EC2 pricing. To create estimates for your AWS use cases, use the AWS Pricing Calculator. To estimate the cost of transforming Microsoft workloads to a modern architecture that uses open source and cloud-native services deployed on AWS, use the AWS Modernization Calculator for Microsoft Workloads. To see your bill, go to the Billing and Cost Management Dashboard in the AWS Billing and Cost Management console. Your bill contains links to usage reports that provide details about your bill. To learn more about AWS account billing, see AWS Billing and Cost Management User Guide. If you have questions concerning AWS billing, accounts, and events, contact AWS Support. To calculate the cost of a sample provisioned environment, see . When calculating the cost of a provisioned environment, remember to include incidental costs such as snapshot storage for EBS volumes. You can optimize the cost, security, and performance of your AWS environment using AWS Trusted Advisor. You can use AWS Cost Explorer to analyze the cost and usage of your EC2 instances. You can view data up to the last 13 months, and forecast how much you are likely to spend for the next 12 months. For more information, see Analyzing your costs and usage with AWS Cost Explorer in the AWS Cost Management User Guide. | Complete extracted text content from website |
language | string | en | Detected language code of website content (e.g. en) |
publisher | object | null | Publisher or source organization of webpage |
url | string | https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSEC2/latest/UserGuide/concepts | Original URL provided for text conversion |
Filling a whole column
Hand the first argument a range instead of a cell and the add-in makes one batched call for the lot, then spills the answers down. That is faster than dragging the formula and costs the same credits — one per row looked up.
=VERVE("websitetotext", A2:A100, "field", "description")=VERVE.CALL("websitetotext", A2:A100, "field", "description")A2:A100 is the column of url values. The result spills down alongside it, one row per input, blanks skipped.
When a cell doesn't fill
A failed lookup returns readable text starting with #ERR rather than a spreadsheet error, because Excel cannot show a custom message on a real error — you would get a bare #VALUE! with no reason. The trade-off is that IFERROR() won't catch it; test with LEFT(cell, 4) = "#ERR" instead.
| Cell reads | What happened |
|---|---|
#ERR Not connected | No API key saved. Open the side panel and connect your account. |
#ERR Replace <name> with a cell or value | The preview formula was copied as-is. Swap the placeholder for a cell reference. |
#ERR No "x" in websitetotext | An option name that this source doesn't take. The message lists the ones it does. |
#ERR No data point "…" | The "field" path isn't in the response. Check the dot-path against the table above. |
#PREMIUM(field) | The field exists but your plan doesn't include it. |
#ERR Out of credits | The month's credits are spent. Usage resets on your billing date. |
Before the formula works
The add-in reads the API key you saved once in the side panel — the key never goes in the formula, so a shared sheet doesn't leak it and a collaborator without access simply sees the last calculated values.
- Install the add-in for Google Sheets or Excel.
- Open the side panel and sign in, or paste a key from your dashboard.
- Type the formula above into any cell.
Other ways to use Website to Text in Google Sheets
Set up Website to Text in Google Sheets on VerveSheets, or reach the same source a different way. Your VerveSheets account and credits work on all of them — one key, one balance.
Frequently asked questions
Does Website to Text in Google Sheets work in both Google Sheets and Excel?
Yes — the same source, the same arguments. Sheets calls it =VERVE("websitetotext", …) and Excel calls it =VERVE.CALL("websitetotext", …); that function name is the only difference.
Do the cells recalculate on their own?
They recalculate when the sheet does — on edit, on open, or on a manual recalc. Each recalculation is a fresh call and spends credits, so for a large static column it's worth copying the results and pasting them as values.
How many credits does a filled column cost?
10 credits per row looked up, whether you drag the formula or pass a range. The range form is one HTTP call instead of many, but the credit count is the same.
Can I share the sheet without sharing my key?
Yes. The key is stored against your account, not in the file. Collaborators see the values already in the cells; formulas only recalculate for someone who has connected their own account.
Why is a cell showing #ERR instead of an error?
So you can read the reason. Excel can't display a custom message on a real spreadsheet error, so the add-in returns the explanation as text on both platforms instead.