Question

I want to generate an excel report on client users on my network/ intranet. I was hoping to have a desktop app using C# to connect to SQL server and manipulate the data then bind it to excel. some formatting would go on here as well.

I don’t think this is possible so long story short I want a method for getting a custom excel report to users on my network that pulls from a sql server and can be linked to from the intranet as well as being able to deploy once to all users.

any thoughts?

Answer 1

One approach would be to create Excel 2007 XML files using the (free) microsoft excel SDK. This supports all of the excel functionality including formulas and formatting:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338205(v=office.12).aspx

You should also be able to open these files in excel 2000 or later if you install the compatibility pack for office 2007 (again free)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en