API to read/write XLS files

[David Thielen]

Hi;

Is there an API to read/write XLS files? I need a way to do this that does
not require Excel to be installed. (Requiring .NET 2.0 is fine.)

 

[Peter Huang [MSFT]]

Hi

There is no such API to handle XLS file(read/write) without Excel.
Because XLS file format is not public, we only expose the Excel Object
Modal to parse the XLS file which need the Excel application.

Thanks for your understanding!

Best regards,

Peter Huang
Microsoft Online Partner Support

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[- B@rney]

But the Excel XML file format is public. So if you can have a constraint on
working only with Excel 2003 you can read/write the files as XML in a .NET
application working in the XML DOM.

HTH

 

[David Thielen]

Yep - that we have. But some people need xls.

 

[sam]

Microsoft has no API to read/write .xls files, for various good reason.
However, other people do.

Here's a variety of open source projects, off the top of my head (google the
names for more details):
Spreadsheet:arseExcel and Spreadsheet::WriteExcel
pyXLReader / pyXLWriter
Ole::Storage and Herbert
JExcelApi

There are also ports and wrappers for various other scripting languages, if
you prefer ruby or php to perl, python, or Java.

Another possibility is to grab and reuse the conversion code from one of the
open source spreadsheets (Gnumeric, OpenOffice, Siag, etc.)--but this will be
more complicated.

Go to freshmeat.net and search for "Excel" and I'll bet you find dozens of
other options.

If you really want a COM object to drop directly into a VB.NET app, the only
choices I know of are commercial projects, such as Stellent Outside In (not a
recommendation, just the first one that comes to mind).