phpexcel to download

Question

hello i am new to phpexcel, and i was wondering if there is some way send the excel i have created to the clients download without saving it on my server or to delete it right after he downloads it

i am trying to create an "export button" on a page that will give the user a "pop-up" with the excel that he wants that i have just created.

now after i create the table i do :

$objXLS->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension("A")->setAutoSize(true); $objXLS->getActiveSheet()->getColumnDimension("B")->setAutoSize(true);  $objXLS->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('Test Stats');  $objXLS->setActiveSheetIndex(0);  $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objXLS, 'Excel5'); $objWriter->save(__DIR__."/test1.xls"); 

but that saves it to my server

thank you

Answer 1

Instead of saving it to a file, save it to php://output^­Docs:

$objWriter->save('php://output'); 

This will send it AS-IS to the browser.

You want to add some headers^­Docs first, like it's common with file downloads, so the browser knows which type that file is and how it should be named (the filename):

// We'll be outputting an excel file header('Content-type: application/vnd.ms-excel');  // It will be called file.xls header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="file.xls"');  // Write file to the browser $objWriter->save('php://output'); 

First do the headers, then the save. For the excel headers see as well the following question: Setting mime type for excel document.

Answer 2

$excel = new PHPExcel(); header('Content-Type: application/vnd.ms-excel'); header('Content-Disposition: attachment;filename="your_name.xls"'); header('Cache-Control: max-age=0');  // Do your stuff here  $writer = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($excel, 'Excel5');  // This line will force the file to download $writer->save('php://output');