How can I export tables to Excel from a webpage [closed]
How can I export tables to Excel from a webpage. I want the export to contain all the formatting and colours.
Solution 1:
Far and away, the cleanest, easiest export from tables to Excel is Jquery DataTables Table Tools plugin. You get a grid that sorts, filters, orders, and pages your data, and with just a few extra lines of code and two small files included, you get export to Excel, PDF, CSV, to clipboard and to the printer.
This is all the code that's required:
$(document).ready( function () {
$('#example').dataTable( {
"sDom": 'T<"clear">lfrtip',
"oTableTools": {
"sSwfPath": "/swf/copy_cvs_xls_pdf.swf"
}
} );
} );
So, quick to deploy, no browser limitations, no server-side language required, and most of all very EASY to understand. It's a win-win. The one thing it does have limits on, though, is strict formatting of columns.
If formatting and colors are absolute dealbreakers, the only 100% reliable, cross browser method I've found is to use a server-side language to process proper Excel files from your code. My solution of choice is PHPExcel It is the only one I've found so far that positively handles export with formatting to a MODERN version of Excel from any browser when you give it nothing but HTML. Let me clarify though, it's definitely not as easy as the first solution, and also is a bit of a resource hog. However, on the plus side it also can output direct to PDF as well. And, once you get it configured, it just works, every time.
UPDATE - September 15, 2016: TableTools has been discontinued in favor of a new plugin called "buttons" These tools perform the same functions as the old TableTools extension, but are FAR easier to install and they make use of HTML5 downloads for modern browsers, with the capability to fallback to the original Flash download for browsers that don't support the HTML5 standard. As you can see from the many comments since I posted this response in 2011, the main weakness of TableTools has been addressed. I still can't recommend DataTables enough for handling large amounts of data simply, both for the developer and the user.
Solution 2:
A long time ago, I discovered that Excel would open an HTML file with a table if we send it with Excel content type. Consider the document above:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Java Friends</title>
</head>
<body>
<table style="font-weight: bold">
<tr style="background-color:red"><td>a</td><td>b</td></tr>
<tr><td>1</td><td>2</td></tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
I ran the following bookmarklet on it:
javascript:window.open('data:application/vnd.ms-excel,'+document.documentElement.innerHTML);
and in fact I got it downloadable as a Excel file. However, I did not get the expected result - the file was open in OpenOffice.org Writer. That is my problem: I do not have Excel in this machine so I cannot try it better. Also, this trick worked more or less six years ago with older browsers and an antique version of MS Office, so I really cannot say if it will work today.
Anyway, in the document above I added a button which would download the entire document as an Excel file, in theory:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>Java Friends</title>
</head>
<body>
<table style="font-weight: bold">
<tr style="background-color:red"><td>a</td><td>b</td></tr>
<tr><td>1</td><td>2</td></tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2">
<button onclick="window.open('data:application/vnd.ms-excel,'+document.documentElement.innerHTML);">
Get as Excel spreadsheet
</button>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>
Save it in a file and click on the button. I'd love to know if it worked or not, so I ask you to comment even for saying that it did not work.
Solution 3:
It is possible to use the old Excel 2003 XML format (before OpenXML) to create a string that contains your desired XML, then on the client side you could use a data URI to open the file using the XSL mime type, or send the file to the client using the Excel mimetype "Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel" from the server side.
- Open Excel and create a worksheet with your desired formatting and colors.
- Save the Excel workbook as "XML Spreadsheet 2003 (*.xml)"
- Open the resulting file in a text editor like notepad and copy the value into a string in your application
- Assuming you use the client side approach with a data uri the code would look like this:
<script type="text/javascript"> var worksheet_template = '<?xml version="1.0"?><ss:Workbook xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet">'+ '<ss:Styles><ss:Style ss:ID="1"><ss:Font ss:Bold="1"/></ss:Style></ss:Styles><ss:Worksheet ss:Name="Sheet1">'+ '<ss:Table>{{ROWS}}</ss:Table></ss:Worksheet></ss:Workbook>'; var row_template = '<ss:Row ss:StyleID="1"><ss:Cell><ss:Data ss:Type="String">{{name}}</ss:Data></ss:Cell></ss:Row>'; </script> - Then you can use string replace to create a collection of rows to be inserted into your worksheet template
<script type="text/javascript"> var rows = document.getElementById("my-table").getElementsByTagName('tr'), row_data = ''; for (var i = 0, length = rows.length; i < length; ++i) { row_data += row_template.replace('{{name}}', rows[i].getElementsByTagName('td')[0].innerHTML); } </script> -
Once you have the information collected, create the final string and open a new window using the data URI
<script type="text/javascript"> var worksheet = worksheet_template.replace('{{ROWS}}', row_data);window.open('data:application/vnd.ms-excel,'+worksheet); </script>
It is worth noting that older browsers do not support the data URI scheme, so you may need to produce the file server side for those browser that do not support it.
You may also need to perform base64 encoding on the data URI content, which may require a js library, as well as adding the string ';base64' after the mime type in the data URI.