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Hi I am having a list container which contains the list of values. I wish to export the list values directly to Excel. Is there any way to do it directly?

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I wish to export it to excel. Can any one of you give me a sample code? – susanthosh Feb 5 '10 at 10:27
I gave you a link to an MSDN Example within my post, that provides sample code on how to create and write data to an Excel file through the Interop. – Ian Feb 5 '10 at 11:24
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7 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

OK, here is a step-by-step guide if you want to use COM.

  1. You have to have Excel installed.
  2. Add a reference to your project to the excel interop dll. To do this on the .NET tab select Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel. There could be multiple assemblies with this name. Select the appropriate for your Visual Studio AND Excel version.
  3. Here is a code sample to create a new Workbook and fill a column with the items from your list.
using NsExcel = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;

public void ListToExcel(List<string> list)
{
    //start excel
    NsExcel.ApplicationClass excapp = new Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel.ApplicationClass();

    //if you want to make excel visible           
    excapp.Visible = true;

    //create a blank workbook
    var workbook = excapp.Workbooks.Add(NsExcel.XlWBATemplate.xlWBATWorksheet);

    //or open one - this is no pleasant, but yue're probably interested in the first parameter
    string workbookPath = "C:\test.xls";
    var workbook = Workbooks.Open(workbookPath,
        0, false, 5, "", "", false, Excel.XlPlatform.xlWindows, "",
        true, false, 0, true, false, false);

    //Not done yet. You have to work on a specific sheet - note the cast
    //You may not have any sheets at all. Then you have to add one with NsExcel.Worksheet.Add()
    var sheet = (NsExcel.Worksheet)workbook.Sheets[1]; //indexing starts from 1

    //do something usefull: you select now an individual cell
    var range = sheet.get_Range("A1", "A1");
    range.Value2 = "test"; //Value2 is not a typo

    //now the list
    string cellName;
    int counter = 1;
    foreach (var item in list)
    {
        cellName = "A" + counter.ToString();
        var range = sheet.get_Range(cellName, cellName);
        range.Value2 = item.ToString();
        ++counter;
    }

    //you've probably got the point by now, so a detailed explanation about workbook.SaveAs and workbook.Close is not necessary
    //important: if you did not make excel visible terminating your application will terminate excel as well - I tested it
    //but if you did it - to be honest - I don't know how to close the main excel window - maybee somewhere around excapp.Windows or excapp.ActiveWindow
}
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up vote 1 down vote

You could output them to a .csv file and open the file in excel. Is that direct enough?

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up vote 1 down vote

The most straightforward way (in my opinion) would be to simply put together a CSV file. If you want to get into formatting and actually writing to a *.xlsx file, there are more complicated solutions (and APIs) to do that for you.

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up vote 1 down vote

Using the CSV idea, if it's just a list of Strings. Assuming l is your list:

using System.IO;

using(StreamWriter sw = File.CreateText("list.csv"))
{
  for(int i = 0; i < l.Count; i++)
  {
    sw.WriteLine(l[i]);
  }
}
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up vote 0 down vote

Depending on the environment you're wanting to do this in, it is possible by using the Excel Interop. It's quite a mess dealing with COM however and ensuring you clear up resources else Excel instances stay hanging around on your machine.

Checkout this MSDN Example if you want to learn more.

Depending on your format you could produce CSV or SpreadsheetML yourself, thats not too hard. Other alternatives are to use 3rd party libraries to do it. Obviously they cost money though.

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up vote 0 down vote

the one easy way to do it is to open Excel create sheet containing test data you want to export then say to excel save as xml open the xml see the xml format excel is expecting and generate it by head replacing the test data with export data

SpreadsheetML Markup Spec

@lan this is xml fo a simle execel file with one column value i genereted with office 2003 this format is for office 2003 and above 

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<?mso-application progid="Excel.Sheet"?>
<Workbook xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
 xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
 xmlns:x="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel"
 xmlns:ss="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:spreadsheet"
 xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
 <DocumentProperties xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office">
  <Author>Dancho</Author>
  <LastAuthor>Dancho</LastAuthor>
  <Created>2010-02-05T10:15:54Z</Created>
  <Company>cc</Company>
  <Version>11.9999</Version>
 </DocumentProperties>
 <ExcelWorkbook xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel">
  <WindowHeight>13800</WindowHeight>
  <WindowWidth>24795</WindowWidth>
  <WindowTopX>480</WindowTopX>
  <WindowTopY>105</WindowTopY>
  <ProtectStructure>False</ProtectStructure>
  <ProtectWindows>False</ProtectWindows>
 </ExcelWorkbook>
 <Styles>
  <Style ss:ID="Default" ss:Name="Normal">
   <Alignment ss:Vertical="Bottom"/>
   <Borders/>
   <Font/>
   <Interior/>
   <NumberFormat/>
   <Protection/>
  </Style>
 </Styles>
 <Worksheet ss:Name="Sheet1">
  <Table ss:ExpandedColumnCount="1" ss:ExpandedRowCount="6" x:FullColumns="1"
   x:FullRows="1">
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Value1</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Value2</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Value3</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Value4</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Value5</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
   <Row>
    <Cell><Data ss:Type="String">Value6</Data></Cell>
   </Row>
  </Table>
  <WorksheetOptions xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel">
   <Selected/>
   <Panes>
    <Pane>
     <Number>3</Number>
     <ActiveRow>5</ActiveRow>
    </Pane>
   </Panes>
   <ProtectObjects>False</ProtectObjects>
   <ProtectScenarios>False</ProtectScenarios>
  </WorksheetOptions>
 </Worksheet>
 <Worksheet ss:Name="Sheet2">
  <WorksheetOptions xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel">
   <ProtectObjects>False</ProtectObjects>
   <ProtectScenarios>False</ProtectScenarios>
  </WorksheetOptions>
 </Worksheet>
 <Worksheet ss:Name="Sheet3">
  <WorksheetOptions xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel">
   <ProtectObjects>False</ProtectObjects>
   <ProtectScenarios>False</ProtectScenarios>
  </WorksheetOptions>
 </Worksheet>
</Workbook>
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Office Open XML is actually a zip file containing multiple XML files. This is not nearly as straight-forward as you're implying. – Matthew Flaschen Feb 5 '10 at 9:54
Matthew, there is SpreadsheetML which was introduced in Office 2003. This is not a zip file and actually isn't all that hard to work with, I wrote a parser for it recently. – Ian Feb 5 '10 at 9:57
I was reffering to Microsoft excel where when you create sheet you can just go to Save as menu and select to save it as xml file. The open the xml file copy the part that is hard coded and just replace the test data with real data it is easy i have done it million times with MS Office 2000, 2003 with 2007 i haven't tested but it must be similar if you think it is very hard just give me excel file and i can write some cind of test program. – IordanTanev Feb 5 '10 at 9:59
@lordanTanev: I've added the link to the spec for the XML you're talking about. – Ian Feb 5 '10 at 10:05
@lan i have added a sample from the xml i am talking about it is from Excel 2003 – IordanTanev Feb 5 '10 at 11:00
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up vote 0 down vote

List<"classname"> getreport = cs.getcompletionreport();

var getreported = getreport .Select(c => new { demographic = c.rName);

hopes this helps

where cs.getcompletionreport() =reference class file is Business Layer for App

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