PHP: parsing excel documents with formula's vs converting to CSV

Asked Oct 20 '16 at 16:45

Active Oct 20 '16 at 16:45

Viewed 78 times

I have an excel document that I want to parse in PHP. The way I see it I have 2 options. 1)Parse the excel with a library like PHPExcel. 2) Convert the document to CSV and then parse that file.

I feel like it would be easier to convert the document to CSV, but what worries me is a lot of the fields are computed from formulas. Will I have a problem parsing out the calculated fields if I convert it to a CSV?

asked Oct 20 '16 at 16:45

Tyler Hilbert

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Just make sure when you convert it to CSV, you're saving the output instead of the formula. – Jerome Indefenzo Oct 20 '16 at 16:52
@JeromeIndefenzo Alright, how would you recommend doing that? – Tyler Hilbert Oct 20 '16 at 18:04
Use the [built in CSV export of Excel](https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Import-or-export-text-txt-or-csv-files-5250ac4c-663c-47ce-937b-339e391393ba?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#bmexport). – Jerome Indefenzo Oct 20 '16 at 18:17
@JeromeIndefenzo Can I automate that in PHP? The user is going to upload the image and I want to parse it without having to manually do anything. – Tyler Hilbert Oct 20 '16 at 18:21
Ah I see. PHPExcel supports cleanly exporting data to CSV. [Check this link.](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3895819/csv-export-import-with-phpexcel) – Jerome Indefenzo Oct 20 '16 at 18:30
@JeromeIndefenzo Will that convert on the output instead of the formula? – Tyler Hilbert Oct 20 '16 at 18:43
Yeah, it uses the output instead of the formula. – Jerome Indefenzo Oct 21 '16 at 01:56

PHP: parsing excel documents with formula's vs converting to CSV

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