Question

I have an DataTable I need to put into Excel 2007 format and save it as an excel file(.xlsx) 2007.

Can anyone help me to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can use an OLEDB data provider and just treat Excel as another ADO.NET data source in order to loop through your DataTable rows and insert them into the Excel spreadsheet. Here’s a Microsoft KB article that walks you through a lot of the details.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316934/en-us

The big thing to keep in mind is that you can create workbooks and sheets within the workbook, and you can reference existing sheets by appending a ‘$’ at the end of the name. If you omit the ‘$’ at the end of the sheet name, the OLEDB provider will assume that it’s a new sheet and will try to create it.

The dollar sign following the
worksheet name is an indication that
the table exists. If you are creating
a new table, as discussed in the
Create New Workbooks and Tables
section of this article, do not use
the dollar sign.

You can create and spreadsheet in 2003 (.xls) or 2007 format (xlsx), and that’s defined on your connection string — you specify the file that you’re going to write to, and just specify the extension. Make sure you use the right OLEDB provider version.

If you want to create a 2003 (.xls) version, you use this connection string:

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Book1.xls;Extended Properties="Excel 8.0;HDR=YES

If you want to create a 2007 (.xlsx) version, you use this connection string:

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source=C:\Book1.xlsx;Extended Properties="Excel 12.0;HDR=YES

You may have to download the ACE provider from Microsoft in order to create XLSX files. You can find it here.

I usually use the XLS provider, so I haven’t worked with the XLSX provider as much.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have other questions.