IMPORTHTML for web tables in Google Sheets - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

Sample table of countries and their capitals, similar to a web table that IMPORTHTML would fetch.

Cell	Value
A1	Country
B1	Capital
A2	France
B2	Paris
A3	Germany
B3	Berlin
A4	Italy
B4	Rome

Formula Trace

=IMPORTHTML("https://example.com/countries", "table", 1)

Step 1: IMPORTHTML("https://example.com/countries", "table", 1)

Step 2: Place the fetched table data into the sheet starting at the formula cell

Cell Reference Map

Sheet:
+----+---------+---------+
|    |    A    |    B    |
+----+---------+---------+
| 1  | Country | Capital |
| 2  | France  | Paris   |
| 3  | Germany | Berlin  |
| 4  | Italy   | Rome    |
+----+---------+---------+

Formula in cell A1: =IMPORTHTML("https://example.com/countries", "table", 1)

Arrows: Formula fetches entire table into A1:B4

The formula in A1 imports the first table from the given URL, filling cells A1 through B4 with the table data.

Result

Sheet after formula evaluation:
+----+---------+---------+
|    |    A    |    B    |
+----+---------+---------+
| 1  | Country | Capital |
| 2  | France  | Paris   |
| 3  | Germany | Berlin  |
| 4  | Italy   | Rome    |
+----+---------+---------+

The sheet shows the imported table with headers and data from the web page, exactly as fetched by IMPORTHTML.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the number 1 mean in the formula =IMPORTHTML("https://example.com/countries", "table", 1)?

A It selects the first table on the webpage

B It selects the first row of the table

C It selects the first column of the table

D It limits the import to one cell

Key Result

IMPORTHTML(url, "table", index) imports the entire table at position index from the webpage at url.