Question

I already have the code for exporting a html table to excel, but how can I hide the table and still access it with javascript?

<div id="dataExportDiv" style="display:none">
   <table>
      ...table data here...
   </table>
</div>

But the resulting excel document doesn’t have any data. I’ve tried exporting without hiding the table and it works, so I know the export javascript is valid.

Answer 1

You could display the table off screen (out of the viewport):

#parent {
  position: relative;
}
table {
  position: absolute;
  left: -9999px;
}

Beware that it’ll still display if CSS are desactivated (obviously) and will be read by screen readers.
If you’re displaying a chart, this table will be a good text alternative to them (with proper th and scope="col|row") otherwise they’ll find it a PITA if it’s 3km long.
In the latter case, you can hide the table from most recent screen readers with the attribute aria-hidden="true" on table element and provide a skip link just before the table for older screen readers.