Read data from MS Excel
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Hello every one. My objective is to read data from .xls and process in VB.net application. I do have a desktop application which even reads data from a remote DB. I have the following clarification and issues - The application will be installed on different systems and we cannot make it sure that all the systems should have MS Office installed and that too a particular version - Can’t we somehow access data from and to excel files without using Ms Excel components, so that the application should also work on a system where MS Excel is not installed also :doh: Regards Nishkarsh
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Hello every one. My objective is to read data from .xls and process in VB.net application. I do have a desktop application which even reads data from a remote DB. I have the following clarification and issues - The application will be installed on different systems and we cannot make it sure that all the systems should have MS Office installed and that too a particular version - Can’t we somehow access data from and to excel files without using Ms Excel components, so that the application should also work on a system where MS Excel is not installed also :doh: Regards Nishkarsh
You can read/write Excel sheets using OleDb, an example of which you can find here[^]. I'm not quite sure, but I don't think you need Excel installed at all in order to use this method. ANy other method requires Excel to be installed.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008
But no longer in 2009... -
Hello every one. My objective is to read data from .xls and process in VB.net application. I do have a desktop application which even reads data from a remote DB. I have the following clarification and issues - The application will be installed on different systems and we cannot make it sure that all the systems should have MS Office installed and that too a particular version - Can’t we somehow access data from and to excel files without using Ms Excel components, so that the application should also work on a system where MS Excel is not installed also :doh: Regards Nishkarsh
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Thanks a lot for the response. I will try it today
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Hi Zimvbcoder I am trying to read the help manual which I downloaded along with the DLL. Can you please send me any example code (Vb.net if possible). Regards Nishkarsh
modified on Monday, May 3, 2010 6:57 AM
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Hi Zimvbcoder I am trying to read the help manual which I downloaded along with the DLL. Can you please send me any example code (Vb.net if possible). Regards Nishkarsh
modified on Monday, May 3, 2010 6:57 AM
Hi Nishkarsh, Carlos has a code generator on his site which will generate the code for any excel spreadsheet. This can be found here CarlosAg Code Generator[^]. If you design a sample spreadsheet, then you can use the code generator to generate the code for any .Net language. Most often you can use the code straight off, just ensuring the correct values go in the right places, otherwise a bit of refactoring is all that is needed. Happy Coding
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Hi Nishkarsh, Carlos has a code generator on his site which will generate the code for any excel spreadsheet. This can be found here CarlosAg Code Generator[^]. If you design a sample spreadsheet, then you can use the code generator to generate the code for any .Net language. Most often you can use the code straight off, just ensuring the correct values go in the right places, otherwise a bit of refactoring is all that is needed. Happy Coding
Hi Zimvbcoder, It is great. Works really good. One of the easiest thing to output a Excel sheet. The only other thing which i want to know is how to read from a Excel sheet. Regards Nishkarsh
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You can read/write Excel sheets using OleDb, an example of which you can find here[^]. I'm not quite sure, but I don't think you need Excel installed at all in order to use this method. ANy other method requires Excel to be installed.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008
But no longer in 2009...Hi Dave, Thanks for the input. I will be trying it now to read from Excel sheet and write to it. Can you please provide me with some samples in VB.net. Regards Nishkarsh
modified on Monday, May 3, 2010 8:40 AM
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Hi Dave, Thanks for the input. I will be trying it now to read from Excel sheet and write to it. Can you please provide me with some samples in VB.net. Regards Nishkarsh
modified on Monday, May 3, 2010 8:40 AM
I already gave you one, you can find more with a little Google for "vb.net oledb excel[^]".
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007, 2008
But no longer in 2009... -
Hi Nishkarsh, Carlos has a code generator on his site which will generate the code for any excel spreadsheet. This can be found here CarlosAg Code Generator[^]. If you design a sample spreadsheet, then you can use the code generator to generate the code for any .Net language. Most often you can use the code straight off, just ensuring the correct values go in the right places, otherwise a bit of refactoring is all that is needed. Happy Coding
Hi Zimvbcoder, The lib is really great for making good looking XLS file output. I am having some issues and clarifications, can you please help me out. 1. Dose the lib provides any method to read from the excel sheet? 2. I read data from DB and used the codes given to create xls, is looks fine but when i went to save as option i realized it that the format is XML. Am i doing some thing wrong or it gives output in XML format only. Coz when i try to read the data from the generated file (in VB.net using OLEDB) i get file format error. And i Have to manually go and re-save the file in XLS format. Any idea? Regards Nishkarsh:confused: :doh:
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Hi Zimvbcoder, The lib is really great for making good looking XLS file output. I am having some issues and clarifications, can you please help me out. 1. Dose the lib provides any method to read from the excel sheet? 2. I read data from DB and used the codes given to create xls, is looks fine but when i went to save as option i realized it that the format is XML. Am i doing some thing wrong or it gives output in XML format only. Coz when i try to read the data from the generated file (in VB.net using OLEDB) i get file format error. And i Have to manually go and re-save the file in XLS format. Any idea? Regards Nishkarsh:confused: :doh:
Hi Nishkarsh I am afraid the library is only for generating reports, and cannot read Excel spreadsheets. The only way I know of reading Excel spreadsheets without Excel installed on the machine is by using ADO.Net and connecting to the spreadsheet like a database. Unfortunately, I have never used this method and can't give any advice. As the file generated by CarlosAg library is in Spreadsheet XML format, what I do is if I want to read or add to the file, I treat it as a purely XML file and then do my business with XML. As far as saving the file generated, the format of the generated file is Spreadsheet XML, but you can save this as an .xls file and Excel opens this file without an issue, just warning you that the file format is not correct the first time you open it. If you ignore that and open it, then you can save as any format you like from Excel itself. What I normally do is use a FileSaveDialog to get the user to select the name of the file and I use a filter to make sure it only selects .xls files like this :
Dim sfdReport As New SaveFileDialog sfdReport.Filter = "Excel Files (\*.xls)|\*.xls" sfdReport.ShowDialog() book.save(sfdReport.FileName)That way the file is only saved as .xls. Happy Coding
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Hi Nishkarsh I am afraid the library is only for generating reports, and cannot read Excel spreadsheets. The only way I know of reading Excel spreadsheets without Excel installed on the machine is by using ADO.Net and connecting to the spreadsheet like a database. Unfortunately, I have never used this method and can't give any advice. As the file generated by CarlosAg library is in Spreadsheet XML format, what I do is if I want to read or add to the file, I treat it as a purely XML file and then do my business with XML. As far as saving the file generated, the format of the generated file is Spreadsheet XML, but you can save this as an .xls file and Excel opens this file without an issue, just warning you that the file format is not correct the first time you open it. If you ignore that and open it, then you can save as any format you like from Excel itself. What I normally do is use a FileSaveDialog to get the user to select the name of the file and I use a filter to make sure it only selects .xls files like this :
Dim sfdReport As New SaveFileDialog sfdReport.Filter = "Excel Files (\*.xls)|\*.xls" sfdReport.ShowDialog() book.save(sfdReport.FileName)That way the file is only saved as .xls. Happy Coding
Hi zimvbcoder, Thanks for the input, i am doing the same as of now. I will tel you what exactly i wanted to achieve. I have a application which has a long list of items and values (some thing like price list) which the client wants to update on his own from time to time. He is asking that give a provision so that the list is available in Excel he can update it and then the list can be updated in the system. SO i am creating a application in which i am using CarlosAg to read from DB and create a excel file. Which client will update and then i will read it from the excel using OLEDB and update the DB (I know this is not the best way of updating a DB but client is finally the god) :-O Now CarlosAg gives output in XML format and even if i name it as .XLS then also OLEDB dose not read it. So i have to tel the client that please go to file menu and "Save As" .xls before he dose the step 2. This makes the solution not fully automated and chances are they mis out that step and we end up it issues... X| Please do let me know if there is some thing else which we can do about it... Regards Nishkarsh
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Hi zimvbcoder, Thanks for the input, i am doing the same as of now. I will tel you what exactly i wanted to achieve. I have a application which has a long list of items and values (some thing like price list) which the client wants to update on his own from time to time. He is asking that give a provision so that the list is available in Excel he can update it and then the list can be updated in the system. SO i am creating a application in which i am using CarlosAg to read from DB and create a excel file. Which client will update and then i will read it from the excel using OLEDB and update the DB (I know this is not the best way of updating a DB but client is finally the god) :-O Now CarlosAg gives output in XML format and even if i name it as .XLS then also OLEDB dose not read it. So i have to tel the client that please go to file menu and "Save As" .xls before he dose the step 2. This makes the solution not fully automated and chances are they mis out that step and we end up it issues... X| Please do let me know if there is some thing else which we can do about it... Regards Nishkarsh
Hi Nishkarsh. Personally what I would do is to include a place in the app where the client can update the products, rather than saving to Excel and then reading from the spreadsheet. This way you cut out the Excel part altogether. If the customer really insists on a spreadsheet, then I would tell him that Excel needs to be installed on the machine, and use the Microsoft Interop Assemblies to read and write to Excel format. I agree with you that relying on the client to do anything in the right order is just going to cause headaches, and I do not know of a library that can read Excel files without a reference to the Excel dll. Sorry I can't be any more help.
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Hi Nishkarsh. Personally what I would do is to include a place in the app where the client can update the products, rather than saving to Excel and then reading from the spreadsheet. This way you cut out the Excel part altogether. If the customer really insists on a spreadsheet, then I would tell him that Excel needs to be installed on the machine, and use the Microsoft Interop Assemblies to read and write to Excel format. I agree with you that relying on the client to do anything in the right order is just going to cause headaches, and I do not know of a library that can read Excel files without a reference to the Excel dll. Sorry I can't be any more help.
Hi zimvbcoder, I need a bit of help in reading .xml file. I was able to convince my client to have xml instead of xls as both can oven in excel interface. This will avoid 1 manual steep to of saving .xml as .xls. No i tried reading data from .xml files as i am new to it i am having some issues. I am using XmlTextReader class for the same and looking for XmlNodeType.Text, it seams to be working but it dives me some data before and after the data life author and versions also. Which makes my work harder as i only want the files which displayed in the excel interface when i use it to open the .xml file.. Any idea? :~
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Hi zimvbcoder, Thanks for the earlier help I had started using "CarlosAg Excel Xml Writer Library" it was a great experience. Now i am stuck at a point for last 2 days i am not able to move ahead at all. - I have used a excel which had 2-3 merged cells as the report heading then the col headers followed by data lines. I am not able to add more then 6 lines (I am using a loop) a sample code is as followed
For j = 0 To 5 Row = sheet.Table.Rows.Add 'Row.AutoFitHeight = False For i = 0 To DataGridView1.Columns.Count - 1 Row.Cells.Add("test", DataType.\[String\], "s100") Next NextThe above code works fine But the moment I increase "j" loop to 6 or more
For j = 0 To 6
the file is generated but when i open it using Excel 2007 it gives me error with worksheet settings and dose not opens it. I had tried all what i could have taught. Can you please help me with it. Note : I am using "NON-STRONGLY NAMED" version as i did not knew the difference and it was recommended if user is not sure. Will that make any difference? Regards Nishkarsh
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Hi zimvbcoder, Thanks for the earlier help I had started using "CarlosAg Excel Xml Writer Library" it was a great experience. Now i am stuck at a point for last 2 days i am not able to move ahead at all. - I have used a excel which had 2-3 merged cells as the report heading then the col headers followed by data lines. I am not able to add more then 6 lines (I am using a loop) a sample code is as followed
For j = 0 To 5 Row = sheet.Table.Rows.Add 'Row.AutoFitHeight = False For i = 0 To DataGridView1.Columns.Count - 1 Row.Cells.Add("test", DataType.\[String\], "s100") Next NextThe above code works fine But the moment I increase "j" loop to 6 or more
For j = 0 To 6
the file is generated but when i open it using Excel 2007 it gives me error with worksheet settings and dose not opens it. I had tried all what i could have taught. Can you please help me with it. Note : I am using "NON-STRONGLY NAMED" version as i did not knew the difference and it was recommended if user is not sure. Will that make any difference? Regards Nishkarsh
Hello every one... I got to know what wrong i was doing(that time only) now just giving info as may be useful for others... There are variables for number of rows in the starting of the function. One needs to set them ;P