OpenXML SDK Spreadsheet starter kits

Question

I am trying to start working with excel documents through the OpenXML SDK Spreadsheet API. But I havent found any good guides or even examples on how to create a xlsx file from scratch. Only how to open an existing document and modify it.

I have been thinking on having a empty template document and make a copy of it an then begin my proccessing on it. But it doesent feel right. It might be easier but I not comfortable using a technique I dont feel that I understand "pretty" good atleast.

So my question is: Anyone has any god tips on articles or books or any other type of resource that explains the API.

Thanks in advance. /johan

Answer 1

Your best bet is to download the OpenXml SDK 2.0 and install. Once installed, check the Tools directory for a tool called DocumentReflector.exe. Using this tool you can "crack open" an existing xslx document (or docx or pptx). Once opened, the application will show you a treeview of the parts, a panel with the xml for a given part and the code required to generate the document from scratch.

This should give you a great start and get you to really understand the SpreadsheetML syntax (I used this tool to learn WordProcessingML and it REALLY helped!).

Also see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/643643/how-to-create-and-download-excel-document-using-asp-net

Answer 2

http://openxmldeveloper.org is a pretty good resource, with concepts and code samples in various programming languages

Answer 3

I've got to admit. The OpenXml SDK is nice, but there's still a lot to creating a blank spreadsheet.

However, there is a set of Helper Classes available on codeplex called simpleooxml

Very little in the way of documentation, but this blog post shows how to create a new spreadsheet without having to have an existing template.

I've found it works pretty well.