I am working on a WPF application where we are trying to build an editor (and viewer) for dozens of “forms” that currently exist as Excel spreadsheets. These spreadsheets have been developed by our client and include characteristics such as formulas, protected cells, picklists, etc. These characteristics must be preserved in the new editor.
The editor will present the forms to the user which they will then fill out. The filled out forms will be saved to SQL Server. There is a viewer component that will also need to be implemented that will allow the users to view the forms once they have been filled out.
The first thing that comes to mind is to invest in a 3rd-party Excel engine such as those offered by Infragistics, Syncfusion, ComponentOne. All of them look promising, but I’m sure they come with a nice price tag.
I’m trying to brainstorm additional options on how this can be accomplished. I’m thinking “excel-in/excel-out” might be the only way to go to preserve the forms structure and settings. Are there any other options? Can a spreadsheet be exported to another format while maintaining these settings?
I was curious if anyone else had faced this same type of task.
Thanks.
Ended up using ComponentOne’s WPF SpreadSheet control: http://www.componentone.com/SuperProducts/SpreadNET/