dynamically creating an excel file?

[Anon]

I am looking for ideas on how to dynamically creating a downloadable excel file for users of a php based tech support call tracking system I am developing. Does anyone know if this is possible if so how should i go about it. also if there is any tutorials of sample code out there it would be helpful Thanks

Billy G

[Anon]

Hi !

The simplest way to do this is output a file with a .csv extention. On your users computers, if they are using a windows based O/S and have Excel installed, it will open in excel by default.

To do this:

a. in the php file, set the content type for the .csv file. You have to set the header for the mime type as "MIME Type: application/vnd.ms-excel" in the PHP file, before any content is sent to the browser.

b. The data output by php should be in the form of

"data for column1","data for column2",
and so on, new records on a row.

c. If you want to include some basic calculations so that they are performed in Excel, this is also possible... check on the Microsoft support site. I remember noticing some files there a couple of months back.

Regards

Raghu

Billy Gast wrote:

I am looking for ideas on how to dynamically creating a downloadable excel file for users of a php based tech support call tracking system I am developing. Does anyone know if this is possible if so how should i go about it. also if there is any tutorials of sample code out there it would be helpful Thanks

Billy G

[Anon]

thanks
I am still a beginner in PHP so how would i go about outputing a file like that?

Billy

[Anon]

Somthing like below (not tested)

<?php
header("content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel");
echo "first name,second name,age\r\n";
echo "Gill,Bates,45\r\n";
echo "Borge,Hush,55\r\n";
?>