Question

I am trying to load a .xls file into a webbrowser control in my Windows Forms app in such a way that I can keep updating it with data programmatically.

So, for example, as the user presses a button on the form, the data in the Excel sheet updates.

I have managed to load the data into the control very easily:

WebBrowser1.Navigate(PathToXLSFile)

And, according to what I have read online, I should be able to now get control of that sheet using something along the lines of:

Dim wb As Object
WebBrowser1.Navigate(PathToXLSFile)
wb = WebBrowser1.Document

Now, I have tried putting that final line of code into BOTH the WebBrowser1_DocumentCompleted and the WebBrowser1_Navigated modules, but for both, I get that WebBrowser1.Document = Nothing.

I have looked online and found the solutions such as this, this and this, but none of them are working for me.

Again, what I’m looking to do is to load the Excel sheet into the webbrowser control (or another control if you have better ideas) and to be able to edit/change it via .NET.

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As for my full scenario (why I need this):

Basically, my program generates a enormous amount of data that end-users want to see formatted in a particular way (often changing), so what I have done is create a formatted excel sheet with formulas referencing back to a table on a different excel sheet.
That way, all my program needs to do is spit out all the calculated values to the table and then the data is there for the users to see (and is very easily customizable without messing up my program).

The challenge is that now they want to see lots of iterations of this data on a windows form, so, basically what I need to do is each time they want to see the new data, calculate it on the fly and re-show it to them.

I figured out the DataGridView was very difficult to use here because of the complex formatting, so what I’m looking to do is show them the “Output” sheet (via a webBrowser control because that’s all that I could find) and have the ability to keep updating the “Input” sheet with new data such that the output sheet keeps updating.

Answer 1

Just to fully answer this question so anyone who faces this challenge in the future won’t have to knock their head against a brick wall like I did and will have something to guide them, here’s what I ended up doing:

1. Opened my Excel workbook once in the background using Office.Interop – This allowed me to manipulate the data and use Excel’s calculation engine to update the data extremely quickly.
2. Added to my form a PictureBox inside a Panel and set the Panel’s autoscroll = True

Code used to display Excel output:

Dim MyRange As Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.Range

... code ...

MyRange.CopyPicture(Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlPictureAppearance.xlScreen,Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.XlCopyPictureFormat.xlBitmap)

If Clipboard.GetDataObject IsNot Nothing Then
   Dim Data As IDataObject = Clipboard.GetDataObject

   If Data.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Bitmap) Then
       Dim img As Image = Data.GetData(DataFormats.Bitmap, True)

       PictureBox1.Height = img.Height
       PictureBox1.Width = img.Width
       PictureBox1.Image = img
   End If
End If

I would definietly like to state, though, that this answer is 100% thanks to Tim Williams for his AMAZING direction and comments – Thanks!