Simplexcel

Simplexcel is a simple library to generate Excel 2007+ workbooks in their native .xlsx format without relying on COM interop or other mechanisms unsuitable for server use.

PM> Install-Package simplexcel

The simple example of creating a workbook only requires you to create a few Worksheets, populate their Cells, and add them to a new Workbook.

// using Simplexcel;
var sheet = new Worksheet("Hello, world!");
sheet.Cells[0, 0] = "Hello,";
sheet.Cells["B1"] = "World!";

var workbook = new Workbook();
workbook.Add(sheet);
workbook.Save(@"d:\test.xlsx");
		

Cells can be created implicitly from strings, int64's, double and decimal (and anything that's implicitly convertible to those, e.g. int32), or explicitly through the Cell constructor.

Cell textCell = "fromString";
Cell intCell = 4; // will be formatted as number without decimal places "0"
Cell doubleCell = 123.456; // will be formatted with 2 decimal places, "0.00"
Cell decimalCell = 987.654321m; // will be formatted with 2 decimal places, "0.00"
decimalCell.Format = "0.000"; // override the cell format with an Excel Formatting string

// Explicit constructor, specifying the type, value and format (Excel will display this as 88.75%)
Cell decimalWithFormat = new Cell(CellType.Number, 0.8875m, BuiltInCellFormat.PercentTwoDecimalPlaces);
			

After you've added a cell, you can set formatting like Bold or Font Size or Border on it.

// Addressing cells via zero-based row and column index...
sheet.Cells[0, 0] = "Hello,";
sheet.Cells[0, 0].Bold = true;
// ...or Excel-style references, B1 = [0,1]
sheet.Cells["B1"] = "World!";
sheet.Cells["B1"].Border = CellBorder.Bottom | CellBorder.Right;

Cell myCell = "Test Cell";
myCell.FontName = "Comic Sans MS";
myCell.FontSize = 18;
myCell.TextColor = System.Drawing.Color.Violet;
myCell.Bold = true;
myCell.Italic = true;
myCell.Underline = true;
myCell.Border = CellBorder.All; // Left | Right | Top | Bottom
sheet.Cells[0, 2] = myCell;

// To change the width of a column, specify a value. Specifying NULL will use the default
sheet.ColumnWidths[2] = 30;
			

In Excel, this will create a beautiful sheet:

A Worksheet has a PageSetup property that contains the orientation (portrait or landscape) and a setting to repeat a number of rows or columns (starting from the top and left respectively) on every page when printing.

var sheet = new Worksheet("Hello, world!");
sheet.PageSetup.PrintRepeatRows = 2; // How many rows (starting with the top one)
sheet.PageSetup.PrintRepeatColumns = 0; // How many columns (starting with the left one, 0 is default)
sheet.PageSetup.Orientation = Orientation.Landscape;


sheet.Cells["A1"] = "Title!";
sheet.Cells["A1"].Bold = true;
sheet.Cells["A2"] = "Subtitle!";
sheet.Cells["A2"].Bold = true;
sheet.Cells["A2"].TextColor = System.Drawing.Color.Magenta;
for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++)
{
    sheet.Cells[i + 2, 0] = "Entry Number " + (i + 1);
}
			

This looks like this when printing:

You can create Hyperlinks for a cell.

 sheet.Cells["A1"] = "Click me now!";  
 sheet.Cells["A1"].Hyperlink = "http://mstum.github.io/Simplexcel/";  
      

This will NOT automatically format it as a Hyperlink (blue/underlined) to give you freedom to format as desired.

2.6. Polish & Misc.

You can specify a Compression level. By default, a balance between size and performance is chosen.

workbook.Save(@"d:\testNoComp.xlsx", CompressionLevel.NoCompression);
workbook.Save(@"d:\testDefault.xlsx", CompressionLevel.Balanced); // default for Save(string)
workbook.Save(@"d:\testMaxComp.xlsx", CompressionLevel.Maximum);
			

You can also save to a Stream. The Stream must be writable.

workbook.Save(HttpContext.Current.Response.OutputStream, CompressionLevel.Maximum);
			

The workbook class allows you to add an Author and Title, which will show up in the Properties pane.

var workbook = new Workbook();
workbook.Title = "Hello, World!";
workbook.Author = "My Application Version 1.0.0.5";
			

To help troubleshooting issues with generated xlsx files, they contain a file called simplexcel.xml which contains version information and the date the document was generated.

<docInfo xmlns="http://stum.de/simplexcel/v1">
	<version major="1" minor="0" build="2" revision="0"></version>
	<created>2012-09-07T21:04:18.5220876Z</created>
</docInfo>				
			

// Sheet names cannot be NULL or empty
new Worksheet(null); // ArgumentException
new Worksheet(""); // ArgumentException

// Sheet names cannot be longer than 31 chars
new Worksheet(new string('a', 32));  // ArgumentException

// Sheet names cannot contain these chars: \ / ? * [ ]
new Worksheet("Data for 09/22/2012"); // ArgumentException

// There are static properties on the Worksheet class to help you create valid names
int maxLength = Worksheet.MaxSheetNameLength;
char[] invalidChars = Worksheet.InvalidSheetNameChars;

// Within a workbook, sheet names must be unique
var wb = new Workbook();
var sheet1 = new Worksheet("Hello!");
var sheet2 = new Worksheet("Hello!");
wb.Add(sheet1);
wb.Add(sheet2); // ArgumentException

// Accessing a cell before it's been assigned returns NULL
sheet1.Cells["A1"].Bold = true; // NullReferenceException