Creating Excel document with OpenXml sdk 2.0

Note: OpenXML 2.0 SDK is currently in CTP and is not licensed for production use until Office2010.

My general methodoloy to deal with OpenXML SDK is to create a blank document and a document with just the features you'd like to learn how to implement (like background color) and use the SDK's OpenXmlDiff to see what changes need to be made to implement the feature.

If you are creating a document from scratch, you can use DocumentReflector to generate the code for the default Stylesheet object and then add the styles you need.

Starting with the default:

new Stylesheet(
new Fonts(
    new Font(
        new FontSize() { Val = 10D },
        new Color() { Theme = (UInt32Value)1U },
        new FontName() { Val = "Arial" },
        new FontFamilyNumbering() { Val = 2 })
) { Count = (UInt32Value)1U },
new Fills(
    new Fill(
        new PatternFill() { PatternType = PatternValues.None }),
    new Fill(
        new PatternFill() { PatternType = PatternValues.Gray125 })
) { Count = (UInt32Value)2U },
new Borders(...
...
...
new CellFormats(
new CellFormat() { NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, FontId = (UInt32Value)0U, FillId = (UInt32Value)0U, BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U, FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U }) { Count = (UInt32Value)1U }, ...

I've added a new Font of size 12 and a new Fill with red background (Indexed value 64), and added new CellFormats that reference the index of the new Font and Fill. (Make sure to update the Counts too)

new Stylesheet(
    new Fonts(
        new Font(
            new FontSize() { Val = 10D },
            new Color() { Theme = (UInt32Value)1U },
            new FontName() { Val = "Arial" },
            new FontFamilyNumbering() { Val = 2 }),
        new Font(
            new FontSize() { Val = 12D },
            new Color() { Theme = (UInt32Value)1U },
            new FontName() { Val = "Arial" },
            new FontFamilyNumbering() { Val = 2 })
            ) { Count = (UInt32Value)2U },
    new Fills(
        new Fill(
            new PatternFill() { PatternType = PatternValues.None }),
        new Fill(
            new PatternFill() { PatternType = PatternValues.Gray125 }),
        new Fill(
            new PatternFill() { PatternType = PatternValues.Solid, ForegroundColor = new ForegroundColor() { Rgb = "FFFF0000" }, BackgroundColor = new BackgroundColor() { Indexed = 64 } })
            ) { Count = (UInt32Value)3U },
    new Borders(
        new Border(
            new LeftBorder(), new RightBorder(), new TopBorder(), new BottomBorder(), new DiagonalBorder())
    ) { Count = (UInt32Value)1U },
    new CellStyleFormats(
        new CellFormat() { NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, FontId = (UInt32Value)0U, FillId = (UInt32Value)0U, BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U }
    ) { Count = (UInt32Value)1U },
    new CellFormats(
        new CellFormat() { NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, FontId = (UInt32Value)0U, FillId = (UInt32Value)0U, BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U, FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U },
        new CellFormat() { NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, FontId = (UInt32Value)1U, FillId = (UInt32Value)0U, BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U, FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U },
        new CellFormat() { NumberFormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, FontId = (UInt32Value)0U, FillId = (UInt32Value)2U, BorderId = (UInt32Value)0U, FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U }
    ) { Count = (UInt32Value)3U },
    new CellStyles(
        new CellStyle() { Name = "Normal", FormatId = (UInt32Value)0U, BuiltinId = (UInt32Value)0U }
    ) { Count = (UInt32Value)1U },
    new DifferentialFormats() { Count = (UInt32Value)0U },
    new TableStyles() { Count = (UInt32Value)0U, DefaultTableStyle = "TableStyleMedium9", DefaultPivotStyle = "PivotStyleLight16" });

Then, in code, I apply the CellStyle index to the cells I want to format: (There was already data in cells A2 and A3. Cell A2 gets the larger size, A3 gets red background)

SheetData sheetData = worksheetPart.Worksheet.GetFirstChild<SheetData>();
sheetData.Descendants<Row>().Where(r => r.RowIndex == 2U).First().Descendants<Cell>().First().StyleIndex = 1U;
sheetData.Descendants<Row>().Where(r => r.RowIndex == 3U).First().Descendants<Cell>().First().StyleIndex = 2U;

Many thanks for this article.

After a lot of struggling (and Googling), I finally managed to create a very easy-to-use C# class, which takes a DataSet and a Filename, and creates an Office 2007 .xlsx containing the DataSet's data.

Suddenly, the process of adding a function to your application to "Export to Excel" becomes as easy as...

DataSet ds = CreateSampleData();                  //  Your code here !
string excelFilename = "C:\\Sample.xlsx";

CreateExcelFile.CreateExcelDocument(ds, excelFilename);

I've posted the full source code, plus an example of using it, on the following website.

It's a Visual Studio 2008 C# WinForms application, but you can let Visual Studio upgrade this project, if you're running VS2010.

Enjoy.

http://www.mikesknowledgebase.com/pages/CSharp/ExportToExcel.htm

How to specify a cell style?

new Cell() { CellReference = "B6", StyleIndex = 11U }

Here "11U" is a zero-based index of StylesPart.Stylesheet.CellFormats, in which each CellFormat defines a combination of NumberFormat, Font, Fill and Border styles.

You do not have to add all the styles by program, instead you can create a template xlsx file with all the formats you need in it, and then specify the style index in your program.