phpexcel to download

Question

hello i am new to phpexcel, and i was wondering if there is some way send the excel i have created to the clients download without saving it on my server or to delete it right after he downloads it

i am trying to create an "export button" on a page that will give the user a "pop-up" with the excel that he wants that i have just created.

now after i create the table i do :

$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension("A")->setAutoSize(true);
$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension("B")->setAutoSize(true);

$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('Test Stats');

$objXLS->setActiveSheetIndex(0);

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objXLS, 'Excel5');
$objWriter->save(__DIR__."/test1.xls");

but that saves it to my server

thank you

Answer 1

Instead of saving it to a file, save it to php://output^­Docs:

$objWriter->save('php://output');

This will send it AS-IS to the browser.

You want to add some headers^­Docs first, like it's common with file downloads, so the browser knows which type that file is and how it should be named (the filename):

// We'll be outputting an excel file
header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');

// It will be called file.xls
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.xls"');

// Write file to the browser
$objWriter->save('php://output');

First do the headers, then the save. For the excel headers see as well the following question: Setting mime type for excel document.

Answer 2

$excel = new PHPExcel();
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="your_name.xls"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

// Do your stuff here

$writer = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($excel, 'Excel5');

// This line will force the file to download
$writer->save('php://output');

Answer 3

Use this call

$objWriter->save('php://output');

To output the XLS sheet to the page you are on, just make sure that the page you are on has no other echo's,print's, outputs.

Answer 4

FOR XLSX USE

SET IN $xlsName name from XLSX with extension. Example: $xlsName = 'teste.xlsx';

$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="'.$xlsName.'"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter->save('php://output');

FOR XLS USE

SET IN $xlsName name from XLS with extension. Example: $xlsName = 'teste.xls';

$objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

$objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');
header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="'.$xlsName.'"');
header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
$objWriter->save('php://output');

Answer 5

posible you already solved your problem, any way i hope this help you.

all files downloaded starts with empty line, in my case where four empty lines, and it make a problem. No matter if you work with readfile(); or save('php://output');, This can be fixed with adding ob_start(); at the beginning of the script and ob_end_clean(); just before the readfile(); or save('php://output');.

Answer 6

 header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');

 header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.xlsx"');

 header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

 header ('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT');

 header ('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s').' GMT');

 header ('Cache-Control: cache, must-revalidate');

 header ('Pragma: public');

 $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');

 $objWriter->save('php://output');

Answer 7

I tried the $writer->save('php://output'); command proposed by most answers.

But this happened to download a corrupted file.

To fix it, I had to do this:

    $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
    header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="filename.xlsx"');
    header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');
    $path = 'path/to/temp/file.xlsx';
    // save content to temporary file
    $objWriter->save($path);
    // This header was key to me, in order to get it working
    header("Content-Length: ".filesize($path));
    // output file content
    readfile($path);
    // delete temporary file
    unlink($path);

Answer 8

It is important to state that sometimes for the codeigniter folks using grocery crud v2.9 - v3, you may find that your exported excel files are corrupt and cannot be opened.

You may need to actually modify code sections handling your export to excel in GroceryCrud (even though not recommended to change source code). in particular the exportToExcel() function within ExportState.php, add ob_end_clean() before and after the code block as highlighted below:

// rest of code above....

        ob_end_clean();
        header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="' . $filename . '.xlsx"');
        header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');

        // If you're serving to IE over SSL, then the following may be needed
        header ('Expires: Mon, 26 Jul 1997 05:00:00 GMT'); // Date in the past
        header ('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s').' GMT'); // always modified
        header ('Cache-Control: cache, must-revalidate'); // HTTP/1.1
        header ('Pragma: public'); // HTTP/1.0
        ob_end_clean();

        $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel2007');
        $objWriter->save('php://output');

The obs_end_clean() will clean out outputs and thus wont intefere with what you really want to send to browser which may cause the corrupt file issue.

Hope it helps in your own implementations apart from GroceryCrud. The trick is / or could be the adding of obs_end_clean() before and after your headers.