Here’s a cool way to combine the power of Wikipedia with Google Sheets. The Wikipedia Tools add-on for Sheets adds in Wikipedia custom functions, so you can bring data from Wikipedia right into Sheets.

With more than a dozen functions, it would be tough to cover them all of them in one video. So here are just a few of our favorites.

• In Sheets, go to Add-ons > Get add-ons > search for Wikipedia tools. Click on the  button to install it, and allow it to access your Google account.

To see all available functions

• Head up to the Add-ons menu > Wikipedia Tools > Show documentation. From this dropdown menu, you can learn about each of the functions that this add-on has added to your spreadsheet capabilities.

 

• Another way is to just dive right in. Choose any cell and type =WIKI. This will bring up the auto complete options that allow you to choose from the various functions that we’ve added. If you just hover each item, you’ll see an abbreviated description of what the function does.

 

Let’s look at a few of these custom functions in detail.

 

=WIKIDATAFACTS

This function will return Wikidata facts from a Wikipedia article.

• To use this, type in =WIKIDATAFACTS(“. Next, you’ll need to enter a language code to indicate the language you’re working in, and then a colon and the search term.
• So let’s say we’re searching for facts on Berlin in English. So we’d type in =WIKIDATAFACTS(“en:Berlin”).

 

• We immediately get returned a long list of Wikidata facts about Berlin that we can use to create a comprehensive spreadsheet with any of the data we need listed right here.

 

=WIKISYNONYMS

This is a great way to think about the different ways that people may think about or search for different pieces of information.

• We’ll type out the function, indicate the language again, and this time we’ll search for Chicago. So we’ll type in =WIKISYNONYMS(“en:Chicago”).

 

• Now we can see a widely varied list of synonyms provided for the Windy City (like “land of smelly onions“–who knew?).

 

That’s just a sampling of what this add-on can do. We encourage you to play around with it, as some of the other functions include the ability to provide translations, Wikipedia categories, articles around a common topic, and more.

Click here to watch this video on YouTube.