ASP.NET - Trying to spin off an Excel worksheet with IIS

  • Thread starter Thread starter Steve Kershaw
  • Start date Start date
S

Steve Kershaw

Hello,

I've been trying to spin off an Excel worksheet on the client from an
ASP.NET website. I was successfull in displaying an Excel worksheet on
the client in a test website (not using IIS, but using Visual Studio
2005) with the following code:

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
Application exc = new Application();

exc.Visible = true;

Workbooks workbooks = exc.Workbooks;

_Workbook workbook = workbooks.Add(XlWBATemplate.xlWBATWorksheet);

Excel.Worksheet worksheet = (Excel.Worksheet)workbook.ActiveSheet;
}

This code spins off a blank Excel worksheet.

However when I place this code into another ASP.NET website that I'm
developing, I find that I can't set exc.Visible = true! The Excel
worksheet doesn't display at all. The only difference is that the new
ASP.NET website is run off of IIS and the test website is run off the
local Visual Studio 2005.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

Steve
 
Office automation bits are not designed to work in web applications. If you
want to pop things up as Excel, you have three options I can think of

1. Create a page with an HTML table and change the MIME type to Excel. Poor
man's way
2. Use a third party component to create the excel spreadsheet as a file
(this can be streamed or saved and linked)
3. Use the office components to do the same as #2

I do not recommend #3. And, #1 is only useful for simple spreadsheets (data
reports, for example). There are various office writer type components that
are much lighter than the office bits, so I would use #2 to create files.

--
Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA
http://gregorybeamer.spaces.live.com
Co-author: Microsoft Expression Web Bible (upcoming)

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