Brian, I really appreciate the reply. I'm going to spend some time over the weekend on this. I'll probably give Tony's product a try first and then go from there.
Thanks! -Chris > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:48:48 +0100 > Subject: Re: [U2] import data to excel sheet... > > Hi Chris > > I would investigate Tony's product first - that may well save you a bunch of > work. I'm generating OpenXML from a number of different places - so if your > requirement is for UniVerse only I'd look to Nebula and see if it covers > your needs. > > If you do find afterwards that you still want to look at OpenXML, it's > reasonably simple to update and manage but you need to invest some time > understanding the structure. Essentially, it's based on something called > Open Packaging Convention which is a zipped archive under the hood - though > not compatible will all ZIP programs :(. Within that archive, the content is > divided into a number of separate 'parts' all of which link together to > create a document - so a Word document will have separate parts for the main > body, section headers and footers, media elements, embedded pictures etc. > > Once you have walked through that maze, the spreadsheet markup is simple as > far as the data content is concerned: there are some gotchas when reading > data (shared strings, for example) but you can generally avoid them all if > you are the one generating it. All the content is separated from the > styling, and held in a simple sheetData element for the chosen worksheet. > Each worksheet is a separate XML doc within the archive. > > The difficulty is in adding new styles for formatting, simply because the > format there is very verbose. Your best bet is to create a template, apply > various styles within that template to dummy cells and save it. Then you > have all the styling information ready to use and you can simply apply them > to your cells by adding a style number attribute. > > It's worth noting that OpenXML was introduced as the standard format for > Office 2007, but there is a free download from Microsoft called the Office > Compatibility Pack that lets earlier versions of Office read and write in > that format. > > I'd recommend the free eBook 'OpenXML Explained' by Wouter van Vugt. IIRC > it's downloadable via www.openxmldeveloper.org. > > > Brian > > _______________________________________________ > U2-Users mailing list > [email protected] > http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail is redefining busy with tools for the New Busy. Get more from your inbox. http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_2 _______________________________________________ U2-Users mailing list [email protected] http://listserver.u2ug.org/mailman/listinfo/u2-users
