PhpSpreadsheet - Download file instead of saving it

Question

I need to generate an excel file (xls) and trigger the download after it is generated. I found this example in the documentation.

<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Spreadsheet;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Xlsx;

$spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
$sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();
$sheet->setCellValue('A1', 'Hello World !');

$writer = new Xlsx($spreadsheet);
$writer->save('hello world.xlsx');

It shows how to create a excel file and save it on the server. How can I serve the result to the client instead and "force" him to download it? I need to get the data of the $writer somehow.

I am currently solving it without PhpSpreadsheet:

// Excel Export 
    $filename = 'export_'.date('d-m-y').'.xls';
    $filename = $validator->removeWhitespace($filename);

    header('Content-type: application/ms-excel');
    header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename='.$filename);
    exit($response["output"]);  // <-- contains excel file content

But it is not working with my delimiter (semicolon). The semicolon is not getting interpreted and everything is getting written into one column.

If I export it as .csv, then it works. But I need it as .xls or .xlsx

Answer 1

use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Spreadsheet;
use PhpOffice\PhpSpreadsheet\Writer\Xlsx;

class DownloadExcel
{
    public static function createExcel(array $data, array $headers = [],
                                       $fileName = 'data.xlsx')
    {
        $spreadsheet = new Spreadsheet();
        $sheet = $spreadsheet->getActiveSheet();

        for ($i = 0, $l = sizeof($headers); $i < $l; $i++) {
            $sheet->setCellValueByColumnAndRow($i + 1, 1, $headers[$i]);
        }

        for ($i = 0, $l = sizeof($data); $i < $l; $i++) { // row $i
            $j = 0;
            foreach ($data[$i] as $k => $v) { // column $j
                $sheet->setCellValueByColumnAndRow($j + 1, ($i + 1 + 1), $v);
                $j++;
            }
        }

        $writer = new Xlsx($spreadsheet);
        header('Content-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet');
        header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'. urlencode($fileName).'"');
        $writer->save('php://output');
    }

}

This is what I use to create a spreadsheet with PhpSpreadsheet and output directly to php://output for download.

Answer 2

My answer : PHP:

$writer = new Xlsx($spreadsheet);
ob_start();
$writer->save('php://output');
$ret['data'] = base64_encode(ob_get_contents());
ob_end_clean();

JS:

var linkSource = 'data:application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet;base64,'+ response.data ;
var downloadLink = document.createElement("a");
var fileName = 'clients.' + format;

downloadLink.href = linkSource;
downloadLink.download = fileName;
downloadLink.click();

Answer 3

I solved it with a workaround. I temporarily save the file on the server, then I load the content into a variable and serve it as a download file. Then I delete the file from the server.

Workaround:

$date = date('d-m-y-'.substr((string)microtime(), 1, 8));
$date = str_replace(".", "", $date);
$filename = "export_".$date.".xlsx";

try {
    $writer = new Xlsx($response["spreadsheet"]);
    $writer->save($filename);
    $content = file_get_contents($filename);
} catch(Exception $e) {
    exit($e->getMessage());
}

header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=".$filename);

unlink($filename);
exit($content);

Answer 4

I had the same problem and found a solution here : https://github.com/PHPOffice/PhpSpreadsheet/issues/217

I ended my method with $writer->save('php://output'); then exit()