How to Highlight Row in XSL file without Opening EXCEL using C# - c#

I have an XSL file that I am generating from CSV from and Object etc. etc.
Everything is done except that I need to highlight particular rows in the xsl file. I don't want to have to open Excel and use Macros.
Is there a way to do this in C#?

Do you mean XLS and not XSL?
If so, here's a link that explains the basics of how to use Excel as an object. Since you're opening it as an object, it won't be visible (unless you want it to be), but you'll have full access to navigate, highlight rows, and do whatever else you would normally do in Excel. When done, dispose the object.
Connecting to and navigating Excel through C#

Related

Reading non-standard excel file with C#

What do i mean by 'non-standard'?
Take a look at these images: http://imgur.com/a/tFqHQ
The first one is the non-standard excel file. I'm pretty sure it's not an excel file, but the file's extension is .xls and for some reason Excel can open it, and understand it's structure.
The second image is the same file after it was opened in excel, and saved out to .xls (97-2003).
If excel can open it, and view it correctly, i should be able to do as well. Any tips how to approach this?
I have to mention that, my app have to use and read the non-standard excel files, because otherwise the user have to open the files one-by-one in (excel/libre office) and save it out in a correct format, which i would like to avoid for convenience.

Prompted to Save Changes on file created with EPPlus

I am creating a series of Excel Workbooks using EPPlus v3.1.3. When I open the newly created files, if I close it without touching anything it asks me if I want to save my changes. The only thing I've noticed changes if I say "yes" is that the app.xml file is slightly altered - there is no visible difference in the workbook, and the rest of the XML files are the same. I have tried both of these approaches:
ExcelPackage p = new ExcelPackage(new FileInfo(filename));
p.Save();
as well as
ExcelPackage p = new ExcelPackage();
p.SaveAs(new FileInfo(filename));
and both have the same problem. Is there a way to have the app.xml file output in its final form?
The reason this is an issue is because we use a SAS program to QC, and when the SAS program opens the files as they have been directly output from the EPPlus program it doesn't pick up the values from cells that have formulas in them. If it is opened and "yes" is chosen for "do you want to save changes", it works fine. However, as we are creating several hundred of these, that is not practical.
Also, I am using a template. The template appears normal.
What is particularly strange is that we have been using this system for well over a year, and this is the first time we have encountered this issue.
Is there any way around this? On either the C# or SAS side?
What you are seeing is not unusual actually. Epplus does not actually generate a full XLSX file - rather it creates the raw XML content (all office 2007 document formats are xml-based) and places it in the zip file which is renamed to XLSX. Since it has not been ran through the Excel engine it has not be fully formatted to excels liking.
If it is a simple data sheet then chances are Excel does not have to do much calculation - just basic formatting. So in that case it will not prompt you to save. But even then if you do you will see it change the XLSX file a little. If you really want to see what it is doing behind the scenes rename the file to .zip and look at the xml files inside before and after.
The problem you are running in to is because it is not just a simple table export Excel has to run calculations when opened for the first time. This could be many things - formulas, autofilters, auto column/row height adustments, outlining, etc. Basically, anything that will make the sheet look a little "different" after excel gets done with it.
Unfortunately, there is no easy fix for this. Running it through excel's DOM somehow would be simplest which of course defeats the purpose of using EPPlus. The other thing you could do is see the difference between the before and after of the xml files (and there are a bunch in there you would have to look at) and mimic what excel would change/add in the "after" file version by manually editing the XML content. This is not a very pretty option depending on how extensive the changes would be. You can see how I have done it in other situations here:
Create Pivot Table Filters With EPPLUS
Adding a specific autofilter on a column
Set Gridline Color Using EPPlus?
I ran into this same issue using EPPlus (version 4.1.0, fyi) and found adding the following code before closing fixed the problem:
p.Workbook.Calculate();
p.Workbook.FullCalcOnLoad = false;

How can I export data from Excel to png?

I have a set of Excel spreadsheets with multiple tabs which contains each one table that I need to export as pictures in an automated process (I have dozens of such files to process).
While I could "manually" select the table, copy and paste them as image in another software, I need to industrialize this process to save time.
What would be the best approach using .Net or any builtin Excel feature?
Thanks
Check this question.
Programmatically (C#) convert Excel to an image
It looks like they're doing what you need?
Think I would use a small C# apop to do it - that assumes that you have a one off task and don't want to mess about with Excel templates or global excel macros and opening each spreadsheets etc.
I would do it like this:
dump all my excel docs in a single folder.
open up each doc in the folder in C# app
iterate each tab
If data capture data for all used ranges (from A1 to the whatever the bottom right cell is) - for any embedded charts pull them off as well
If chart pull it off
dump each to the folder as an image prefixed with the excel doc name and some iterative suffix like _chat01 _data01
How to rwead it ina and convert to image? See here => http://csharp.net-informations.com/excel/csharp-excel-chart-picturebox.htm
Copy all desired cells
Open MS-Paint
Paste
Save as PNG.

Loading XML files to sheets of one Excel workbook using C#

I have an XML file that I am trying to load to into an existing workbook in Excel. I realize that I can simply open the file and it will load into Excel easily. I am trying to get it to load to a specific sheet within my already open workbook. What would be the best practice for this? I have the path of the XML file which is in a string, but I am lost on where to go from there.
I would probably look into the Excel COM automation API. This allows you to take data that you have in memory, or in an XML file in your case, and programmatically place it into whatever cells you want in the workbook. It's a lot more work, but it gives you a lot more control.
From C#, you would want to look at the Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel dlls, if you choose to go this route. Hopefully someone else will come along and give you an easier answer, but that's the best that I can think of right now.

open xml to query excel cells

In the past, I have created a component to pass and retrieve values to/from excel using the excel libraries. The good thing is that once you have your workbook in memory and modify a cell (let's call it the origin cell) all the other cells with formulas that take this origin cell value are automatically refreshed.
Is this possible in OpenXml?
As far as I see, apparently this doesn't happen in OpenXml because the excel engine is not really executed in the background, OpenXml is just a group of classes to serialize, deserialize, read etc xml files right?
That's correct, Office Open XML SDK is just a set of libraries to read/write XML files. It does not have any functionality for performing calculations.
You can specify that Excel should recalculate everything upon load by setting the following attribute, but if you need to read the new values in code (prior to re-opening in Excel) this won't help.
<workbook>
<calcPr fullCalcOnLoad="1"/>
</workbook>
Or in code with the Office Open XML SDK..
using (var doc = SpreadsheetDocument.Open(path, false))
{
doc.WorkbookPart.Workbook.CalculationProperties.FullCalculationOnLoad = true;
.
.
.
}

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