Using PHP to launch excel

piksimoon

Hi,

I'm designing a web page where users can access certain excel files. I'm using PHP to access MySQL in order to retrieve the corrent path & name of the file, which is working, but I want to open those excel files using MSExcel in one frame of the page. I'm using this code:

$Checklist_Row = mysql_fetch_array($Checklist_Results);

$fp = fopen($Checklist_Row["Checklist"],"r");
fpassthru($fp);

but all I get is gibberish on the screen. I'm using IE, and I'm pretty sure that it has actually opened the excel file, as I can see bits and pieces of the file in the gibberish, but how can I get it to open in the original format in that frame, actually using MSExcel? If someone could tell me (I'm having a heck of a time finding the answer to this one) it would be really appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

xijia

maxholman

Before you output any data, be sure that the Browser knows what kind of content it should be expecting.

Using the header function as follows:

Header("Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel")

You can tell the browser to expect an Excel document.

I have had endless problems with this and IE, for some reason I can only get it to work if I use call the PHP script with a ? on the end.

Good luck!

piksimoon

Hi again everybody,

Thanks Macks for the tip, but actually another problem has arisen :-(. I thought simply using this method to open the excel files with the web browser would work (and it does for about half of them) but the other half opens as a blank web page. I think it is because some of them have relative hyperlinks to our local network and lots of formulas (those seem to be the ones that refuse to open). The only way I can think to get around this is to use IE to launch Excel itself...is there some other way to get around this mess? If not, how can I use IE to launch Excel (the application) and then the Excel files?

                  -- thanx again, a bunch
                         xijia

Anon

Isn't it possible to run a client side app with Javascript?

I read somewhere it's possible.