XSLT to create formatted Excel sheets?

uit · August 7th, 2003, 12:05 PM

Greetings -

I know very little of XLST and I am wondering if someone who does would be able to tell if its possible to create formatted Excel spreadsheets from data coming out of a SQL Server 2000 query?

Right now I save the data as a CSV file, change the content-type and let the user download/open that file in Excel. Its not formatted at all however.

This is where I am thinking XSLT might be able to help? Or am I way off base? Has anyone got a different suggestion or board I should post this question on - if not XSLT?

Any help would be appreciated greatly!

Cheers!

joefawcett · August 8th, 2003, 03:10 AM

Provided they are using Excel 2000 or above, even Excel 97 will work at a more limited level, then the easiest way is to create an HTML table formatted as you wish. If the content type is set to "application/vnd.ms-excel" the formatting will be carried through.
See this link:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;199841

You could also try this:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...B;EN-US;271572

--

Joe

uit · August 8th, 2003, 08:21 AM

Thank you Joe!

The first link is basically how I perform the operation now. The second link is very interesting and I will look into that further.

Thanks for the reply!!

Anthony

jleeomc · September 2nd, 2003, 12:53 PM

I've done the XML-SS and it's pretty easy. The best way to learn in to open up Excel 2002/XP, create a sample worksheet (you can use formatting, and formulas), save as 'XML'. Then edit the result and you'll see what gets generated (XML-SS).

shbyland · October 7th, 2003, 08:18 PM

I have had to do this a couple times now. The best way I found was to create the desired file in Excel (2000 or later is best) and apply all the formatting that you want in the output, then "save as" html. I then edit the resulting html file and turn it into a stylesheet (there are also utilities out there to convert html files into stylesheest...).

good luck,

...sam