Create, Edit, Update Excel Sheets on Sever

You need to have Microsoft Excel installed on you web server if you are using Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel. But its not always possible to install Microsoft Excel on your web server.

There is a small library named EPPlus which you can use to create, edit and update excel sheets on server. its available on codeplex as well as on nuget

Here is the sample code to write a excel file on server

private void DumpExcel(DataTable tbl)
        {
            using (ExcelPackage pck = new ExcelPackage())
            {
                //Create the worksheet
                ExcelWorksheet ws = pck.Workbook.Worksheets.Add("Demo");

                //Load the datatable into the sheet, starting from cell A1. Print the column names on row 1
                ws.Cells["A1"].LoadFromDataTable(tbl, true);

                //Format the header for column 1-3
                using (ExcelRange rng = ws.Cells["A1:C1"])
                {
                    rng.Style.Font.Bold = true;
                    rng.Style.Fill.PatternType = ExcelFillStyle.Solid;                      //Set Pattern for the background to Solid
                    rng.Style.Fill.BackgroundColor.SetColor(Color.FromArgb(79, 129, 189));  //Set color to dark blue
                    rng.Style.Font.Color.SetColor(Color.White);
                }

                //Example how to Format Column 1 as numeric 
                using (ExcelRange col = ws.Cells[2, 1, 2 + tbl.Rows.Count, 1])
                {
                    col.Style.Numberformat.Format = "#,##0.00";
                    col.Style.HorizontalAlignment = ExcelHorizontalAlignment.Right;
                }

                //Write it back to the client
                Response.ContentType = "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet";
                Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;  filename=ExcelDemo.xlsx");
                Response.BinaryWrite(pck.GetAsByteArray());
            }
        }