Open Excel from Java Application

Question

If I am tring to open notepad from Java Application then it will open Notepad.But If I will try to open Excel then it is giving me exception.

try
    {
        Runtime.getRuntime().exec("excel");
    }
    catch (IOException e) 
    {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

Following is Exception :

java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "excel": CreateProcess error=2, The system cannot find the file specified
    at java.lang.ProcessBuilder.start(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Runtime.exec(Unknown Source)
    at OpenNotepad.main(OpenNotepad.java:18)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: CreateProcess error=2, The system cannot find the file specified
    at java.lang.ProcessImpl.create(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ProcessImpl.<init>(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.ProcessImpl.start(Unknown Source)
    ... 5 more

When I do start->Run->Excel then it will open excel.

Answer 1

If you are trying to use Java to open an Excel file, rather than just opening Excel, I suggest you use the Desktop API class: http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/awt/Desktop.html

This class will use the default OS file handling mechanism, so it will use say MS Excel in Windows, and Open Office in Linux.