Simplest way to read from Excel and Word Files in .NET

Question

This is for self education really. But, is there an easier way to read from an excel sheet, without using the COM/INTEROP DLLs? Any other way Microsoft makes it easier to read values from an excel sheet cell by cell(And word by word in Word)?

You could use Oledbconnection to read line by line witha DataReader object. — Derek, Dec 11 '12 at 14:41
Same sort of question with some suggested answer http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7711851/create-excel-without-interop-and-template-with-or-without-row-and-columnspan — Kamran Shahid, Dec 11 '12 at 14:49

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 19 '12 at 09:45

I know the question asks if there are alternatives to the Excel and Word interop API - but as I read it, this is asked because the OP wants a more simple way to, e.g., read the cells from an Excel sheet or read the words in a Word document.

I just want to add that for Word, reading each word in a document can be done with very few lines:

foreach (var word in myDocument.Words)
{
    Console.WriteLine(word);
}

... I don't believe this can be done more simple, so I was wondering if it really is alternative API's the OP wants or maybe a couple of Word interop samples instead? (at least in case of using the Word interop API)

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 11 '12 at 13:54

1

If you are about new format (xlmx, docx) i think you can use OpenXML.

answered Dec 11 '12 at 13:54

Hamlet Hakobyan

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score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 11 '12 at 15:20

For Word & Excel a good 3rd party library is Aspose http://www.aspose.com/.net/total-component.aspx Aspose provides a very easy to use API with a plethora of options to manipulate word and excel documents. The documentation is also good. That said the licensing fees might be prohibitive.

If you want open-source alternatives for Word there is DocX http://docx.codeplex.com/ DocX provides a nice API over OpenXML.

We have made some major extensions to DocX in an unofficial branch that you may find useful: https://github.com/organizations/Word-DocX

The list of extensions include support for single and multilevel lists, support for reading font-formatting, section/section-breaks etc.

MethodMan · Answer 4 · 2018-08-28T13:47:02.673

If you want to use ODBC and read for a WorkSheet for example follow this simple example this is just one of many different ways to read from Excel

    OleDbCommand myCommand = new OleDbCommand("Select * from [Sheet1$];");
    OleDbConnection myConnection = new OleDbConnection(connectionString);
    myConnection.Open();
    myCommand.Connection = myConnection;
    OleDbDataReader myReader = myCommand.ExecuteReader();

    while (myReader.Read())
    {
    // it can read upto 5 columns means A to E. In your case if the requirement is different then change the loop limits a/c to it.
      //Change the Response.Write blow to Console.WriteLine() if you are wanting to test this in a Console application vs a web app.
      for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++)
      {
        Response.Write(myReaderIdea.ToString() + " ");
      }
      Response.Write("<br>");
    }
    myConnection.Close();

    //make sure to Dispose of the Reader object as well 
   ((IDisposable)myReaderIdea).Dispose();

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 11 '12 at 14:42

0

There is an excel driver for ODBC data sources. It is accessible via the control panel. If you configure there, or use a connection string with the excel driver you could access it via the ADO APIs.

answered Dec 11 '12 at 14:42

RayB64

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Simplest way to read from Excel and Word Files in .NET

5 Answers5