Using Excel components

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Guest

Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open those files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the name of the
file ?
 
Yosi,

You might be able to use the Text provider (which should be included in
MDAC). However, I don't believe it will give you any fine-grained control
in formatting the sheets. Rather, it would most likely just allow you
insert data into the sheet in a tabular format. You will have to use the
classes in the System.Data.OleDb namespace to do this.

You might also want to consider creating a CSV file (comma-delimited),
which Excel can easily read.

Finally, if you know that the version of Excel that is being used is XP
or 2003, then you can create an XML file which adheres to a XML Schema for
office documents (you can find this on the MS site, I believe) which will
allow you to specify all of the formatting, data, formulas, etc, etc.

Hope this helps.
 
How about using the excel object library in your applications. I believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
 
How , where to find such an object library or/and examples ?

Alvin Bruney said:
How about using the excel object library in your applications. I believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open those
files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing
similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the name of
the
file ?
 
No the object model is part of the excel.exe, which is THE COM automation
server.

Willy.

Alvin Bruney said:
How about using the excel object library in your applications. I believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open those
files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without
having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing
similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the name of
the
file ?
 
You can't, the object model is part of excel.exe (and it's dependencies).
The only thing you can do is as Nicholas told you, get some limitted support
for this through MDAC and the oledb text provider, you can find a sample
here: http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/Excel_using_OLEDB.asp

Willy.


How , where to find such an object library or/and examples ?

Alvin Bruney said:
How about using the excel object library in your applications. I believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open those
files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without
having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing
similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the name
of
the
file ?
 
The only thing you can do is...
nope,
the Office Web Components contains COM servers that are NOT part of the
excel.exe. However, it requires a separate download and installation to make
it work which is more of a burden than a cure IMO.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Willy Denoyette said:
You can't, the object model is part of excel.exe (and it's dependencies).
The only thing you can do is as Nicholas told you, get some limitted
support for this through MDAC and the oledb text provider, you can find a
sample here: http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/Excel_using_OLEDB.asp

Willy.


How , where to find such an object library or/and examples ?

Alvin Bruney said:
How about using the excel object library in your applications. I believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open those
files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without
having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing
similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the name
of
the
file ?
 
But they don't offer Excel functionality, they are simple COM components
that are used to present Charts, Pivot tables, and stuf to the web, with
data possibly taken from existing Workbooks and Sheets, but they don't offer
any possibility to create/update sheets.

Willy.

Alvin Bruney said:
The only thing you can do is...
nope,
the Office Web Components contains COM servers that are NOT part of the
excel.exe. However, it requires a separate download and installation to
make it work which is more of a burden than a cure IMO.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Willy Denoyette said:
You can't, the object model is part of excel.exe (and it's dependencies).
The only thing you can do is as Nicholas told you, get some limitted
support for this through MDAC and the oledb text provider, you can find a
sample here: http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/Excel_using_OLEDB.asp

Willy.


How , where to find such an object library or/and examples ?

:

How about using the excel object library in your applications. I
believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open those
files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without
having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing
similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the name
of
the
file ?
 
But they don't offer Excel functionality, they are simple COM components
that are used to present Charts, Pivot tables, and stuf to the web
Actually, they do.

They are full blown excel objects derived from the actual source code of MS
Excel. In fact, the OWC has several advantages over native excel including
support for more rows and columns, formula intigration etc etc. They can run
on windows forms as well as web forms.
but they don't offer any possibility to create/update sheets.
OWC supports full interactivity and worksheet, workbook manipulation
including client and in-memory sheets.

If the OWC can do all that, then you are wondering what the catch is right?
licensing regulations keeps most people away from the OWC components.

buy the black book Willy, I hear it's good...

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Willy Denoyette said:
But they don't offer Excel functionality, they are simple COM components
that are used to present Charts, Pivot tables, and stuf to the web, with
data possibly taken from existing Workbooks and Sheets, but they don't
offer any possibility to create/update sheets.

Willy.

Alvin Bruney said:
The only thing you can do is...
nope,
the Office Web Components contains COM servers that are NOT part of the
excel.exe. However, it requires a separate download and installation to
make it work which is more of a burden than a cure IMO.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Willy Denoyette said:
You can't, the object model is part of excel.exe (and it's
dependencies).
The only thing you can do is as Nicholas told you, get some limitted
support for this through MDAC and the oledb text provider, you can find
a sample here: http://www.codeproject.com/csharp/Excel_using_OLEDB.asp

Willy.


How , where to find such an object library or/and examples ?

:

How about using the excel object library in your applications. I
believe
they are just regular assemblies that provide excel functionality.

--
Regards,
Alvin Bruney - ASP.NET MVP

[Shameless Author Plug]
The Microsoft Office Web Components Black Book with .NET
Now available @ www.lulu.com/owc, Amazon.com etc
Can I make an Excel file without having Excel in my PC ?
I want to create Excel files from my C# application , then open
those
files
later in another PC who have Excel installed .
As we can open and read from Access files in C# application without
having
Access in this PC in this case we install MDAC , Is there any thing
similar
to MDAC for Excel ? if yes where can I download it ? what is the
name of
the
file ?
 
Alvin Bruney said:
Actually, they do.

They are full blown excel objects derived from the actual source code of
MS Excel. In fact, the OWC has several advantages over native excel
including support for more rows and columns, formula intigration etc etc.
They can run on windows forms as well as web forms.

OWC supports full interactivity and worksheet, workbook manipulation
including client and in-memory sheets.

If the OWC can do all that, then you are wondering what the catch is
right?
licensing regulations keeps most people away from the OWC components.

buy the black book Willy, I hear it's good...

--
Alvin,
Looks like I'm badly mistaken here, thanks for correcting me, I placed an
order for the book. I've spent some time with the first version of OWC and I
remember this one required Office to be installed on the client, didn't know
this was simply a "licensing" issue. I had the impression this was needed
for some automation functionality with Office servers like Excel.

Willy.
 
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