to open up an excel file, do I need any special references?

Question

to open up an excel file, do I need any special references?

I want to access the rows programmatically.

Answer 1

Yes. As for which references, you'll need to give us more information.

Answer 2

To actually work with Excel from C#, you'll probaly want to add the Micorsoft.Office.Interop.Excel assembly. Watch the version, version 12 = Office 2007.

Answer 3

If you don't want to use any Interop assemblies, you can use ADO.NET to work with Excel. You can read and write Excel files, and it's all done completely in the .NET framework.