Question

Using this answer I was able to create a pivot table with a tabular layout in EPPlus.

However column headings are not displaying properly. When I create the pivot table with Excel I get the column headings “GA Category” and “Container”:

When I create the pivot table through EPPlus I get the column headings “Row Labels” and “Column Labels”

I was wondering how I can create set the column headings via EPPlus.

Answer 1

Setting the column header via EPPLus cannot be done with the current package. In order to do so I needed to modify ExcelPivotTable.cs in the project, adding this code:

public string ColHeaderCaption
{
    get
    {
        return GetXmlNodeString("@colHeaderCaption");
    }
    set
    {
        SetXmlNodeString("@colHeaderCaption");
    }
}

It is then possible to set the row & column captions via the PivotTable class:

'Sheet containing the data
Dim dataSheet as ExcelWorksheet
dataSheet = package.Workbook.WorkSheets(0)

'Data used on pivot table - default to entire sheet
Dim dataRange as ExcelRangeBase
dataRange = dataSheet.Cells(dataSheet.Dimension.Address)

'New sheet for the pivot table
Dim sheet as ExcelWorkSheet
sheet = package.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Pivot")
package.Workbook.Worksheets.MoveToStart(sheet.Name)
sheet.View.TabSelected = true

'Create the pivot table
Dim pivot as Table.PivotTable.ExcelPivotTable
pivot = sheet.PivotTables.Add(sheet.Cells("A1"), dataRange, "PivotTable")

'Add row field
pivot.RowFields.Add(pivot.Fields("RowField"))

'Set row caption
pivot.RowHeaderCaption = "My Row Caption"

'Add column field
pivot.ColumnFields.Add(pivot.Fields("ColumnField"))

'Set column caption
pivot.ColumnHeaderCaption = "My Column Caption"

If you cannot or do not want to modify EPPlus, you can still add the header to to your pivot table by modifying the XML after the pivot table is created:

pivot.PivotTableXml.DocumentElement.SetAttribute("colHeaderCaption", "My Column Caption");