Using Excel templates with Apache POI

Question

Basic question: How do I load an Excel template for use with POI and then save it to an XLS file?

Edit:

The answer is:

FileInputStream inputStream = new FileInputStream(new File(templateFile));
Workbook workbook = new HSSFWorkbook(inputStream);

(Just load the template as a workbook and then write the workbook as an XLS file elsewhere.)

Answer 1

Have you tried loading it up as a standard .xls using POI, amending it and then saving it ?

This is the approach I've used for inserting macros in a POI-generated .xls. I create the file with the macro (admittedly as an .xls) and then load it into my app, populate with data and save as a newly-created .xls. That all worked fine.

Answer 2

You can directly load an .xls that will act as the template, and modify it.

POIFSFileSystem fs = new POIFSFileSystem(
                new FileInputStream("template.xls"));
HSSFWorkbook wb = new  HSSFWorkbook(fs, true);

Will load an xls, preserving its structure (macros included). You can then modify it,

HSSFSheet sheet1 = wb.getSheet("Data");
...

and then save it.

FileOutputStream fileOut = new FileOutputStream("new.xls"); 
wb.write(fileOut);
fileOut.close();

Hope this helps.