Download to Excel or csv solutions

Question

We need to get download functionality where channel entries can be downloaded to an Excel spreadsheet (preferably) or a csv at a push.

Been looking at Export_It and using it which is ok but ran into two problems which apparently are not solvable - at least have never got any results investigating them - so need maybe another solution.

The problems in question were/are:

1) Strange characters in the spreadsheet if the file contains accented foreign characters. I believe integrating PhpExcel with Export_It should fix this but I never got this working and no-one on PhpExcel forums or elsewhere seems to know anything about the error.

2) We need to be able to take data from TWO categories in the download: i.e. category="1&2" in the parameters. Have not been able to find out if Export_It supports this but it seems not as it doesn't work.

So we need another solution. Has anyone successfully implemented PhpExcel as a stand-alone in EE? Are there any other modules or solutions you might recommend?

Answer 1

One really flexible and simple shortcut to exporting a .xls spreadsheet of Channel data is to generate an html table using an ExpressionEngine template, save the page as a file, and then open the file with MS Excel.

1. Create a template (eg export.group/index.html)
2. Output all the necessary data using a channel:entries loop and any other necessary template tags.
3. Load this template on the front end in your browser (above example template would load at example.com/export)
4. Either save the webpage as a file and manually set the file extension to .xls or use the HTTP Header plugin to automatically force download and set the appropriate file extension for you.

Example template code including force download of .xls file:

{exp:http_header 
    content_disposition="attachment" 
    filename="myfile.xls" 
    content_type="application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet"
}
<table>
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Entry ID</th>
            <th>Title</th>
            <th>Author</th>
            <th>Created</th>
            <th>Updated</th>
            <th>Status</th>
            <th>Tool File</th>
            <th>Tool URL</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        {exp:channel:entries
            channel="tools"
            disable="category_fields|member_data|pagination"
            dynamic="no"
            limit="999"
        }
            <tr>
                <td>{entry_id}</td>
                <td>{title}</td>
                <td>{author}</td>
                <td>{entry_date format="%Y-%m-%d-%H:%i"}</td>
                <td>{edit_date format="%Y-%m-%d-%H:%i"}</td>
                <td>{status}</td>
                <td>{tool_file}</td>
                <td>{tool_url}</td>
            </tr>
        {/exp:channel:entries}
    </tbody>
</table>