Question

I would like to display xls/xlsx document in my web application. It is used JSF2.0. The user can upload Meeting Agenda with xls/xlsx document when he or she reserve the meeting room. I would like to provide a feature that to display the document when attendees join the meeting room. I don’t know which API to support for java web. Can Apache POI use to display in web page?

Answer 1

Apache POI is a library which can among others be used to create, read and manipulate XLS(X) files.

So that’s obviously only useful if you want to create, read and/or manipulate XLS(X) files. In your particular case, it would make sense to use it to read XLS(X) files so that you can collect the desired information in some collection of Javabeans which you in turn present straight in HTML using JSF <h:dataTable> or <ui:repeat>.

A completely different alternative is to present the XLS(X) file plain vanilla in an <iframe> or <object> in the resulting HTML page, but that works only if the webbrowser recognizes the file type (which is usually only the case if MS Office is installed on client machine) and supports the inline display of XLS(X) files (which is often only the case in MSIE browsers, but not in other browsers). So, this puts a huge restriction on the client: the client needs to have a Windows machine with MS Office installed and be using MSIE browser. Extracting the information from the XLS(X) file using Apache POI and presenting it in HTML using JSF is then really the best way.