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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T07:05:13+00:00

While googling I found two different sets of headers that need to be set

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While googling I found two different sets of headers that need to be set when outputting excel generated in different file format.

for e.g.

For Type “Excel5” headers are:

header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Type: application/download");;
header("Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=$filename");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary ");

For Type “Excel2007” headers are:

header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="myfile.xlsx"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

My question: is there need to set up different headers for each file type as there are other file types also CSV, HTML and PDF?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team
    header("Pragma: public");

    No – this is just wrong – though lots of people think it has something to do with caching

    header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");

    Nothing to do with Excel – these just control caching

    header("Content-Type: application/force-download");
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Type: application/download");;

    No – there should only be one content-type header. For a MS Excel file using OLE, the mimetype should be application/vnd.ms-excel

    Only the second header above is a valid mime type.

    header("Content-Disposition: attachment;filename=$filename");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary ");

    The second header is redundant, the former specifies a filename for the download.

    Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet’);

    Only for a .xlsx file (i.e. saved in XML). Otherwise you should use application/vnd.ms-excel. Indeed the latter should be backwardly compatible.

    My question: is there need to set up different headers for each file type

    Yes – the Content-Type header is the file type. But only this header needs to change.

    C.

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