Would you have the web address the excel sheet is on?
Is there a simular web page you could point to if not?
Would there be a copy of the file on an FTP page. This would be easier.
curl
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/mac-os-x-terminal-download-file/
http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2012/04/curl-examples/
http://curl.haxx.se/docs/manpage.html
Macintosh-HD -> Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal
# Press return to run a command.
the curl is a terminal command ( Unix ). It allows you to read a file off of the web.
man curl
provides cryptic information on the commnad curl.
press the space bar to advance a page.
press letter to q to quit.
--------------------------------------------------------------
What you may have to is to read in the web page as a text file. Go "fishing" through the page to find the excel file you need. Once you find the file, you can use curl to read the file.
curl is a very full featured command. (read complex to figure out ).
--------------------------------------------------------------
(*
It is easier to diagnose problems with debug information. I suggest adding log statements to your script to see what is going on. Here is an example.
Author: rccharles
For testing, run in the Script Editor.
1) Click on the Event Log tab to see the output from the log statement
2) Click on Run
For running shell commands see:
http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/technotes/tn2002/tn2065.html
*)
on run
-- Write a message into the event log.
log " --- Starting on " & ((current date) as string) & " --- "
-- debug lines
set desktopPath to (path to desktop) as string
log "desktopPath = " & desktopPath
set unixDesktopPath to POSIX path of desktopPath
log "unixDesktopPath = " & unixDesktopPath
set quotedUnixDesktopPath to quoted form of unixDesktopPath
log "quoted form is " & quotedUnixDesktopPath
try
set fromUnix to do shell script "ls -l " & quotedUnixDesktopPath
display dialog "ls -l of " & quotedUnixDesktopPath & return & fromUnix
on error errMsg
log "ls -l error..." & errMsg
end try
end run