Opening Excel files without Excel being installed

[Riddle]

Hi,

I have found many tutorials showing how to access data in an Excel
spreadsheet using a COM object in .net. But, as far as I can tell, this
requires Excel to be installed.
Is there anyway I can access the Excel file without the user needing
Excel?

Thanks,
Chris Riddle

[Bala]

Hi,

I think it would be possible to write your own "Excel-interpreter" by
binary reading the Excel file, but I would strongly advise against
this.

Otherwise I don't think you can manage this. Even the free .NET interop
assemblies need an original copy of Excel installed.

Good luck,

Alke Wiebenga

PS:
I think OpenOffice is able to import Excel files. OpenOffice code is
Open Source so you could take a look at how they've implemented this..

Riddle wrote:

Hi,

I have found many tutorials showing how to access data in an Excel
spreadsheet using a COM object in .net. But, as far as I can tell, this
requires Excel to be installed.
Is there anyway I can access the Excel file without the user needing
Excel?

Thanks,
Chris Riddle

[Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)]

Hi,

I don;t think so, especially the way you are using it (automation) IF (and
I'm not sure it can be done) you could access it would be using ADO.NET and
OleDb.

Try this approach.
--
--
Ignacio Machin,
ignacio.machin AT dot.state.fl.us
Florida Department Of Transportation

"Riddle" <ch**********@googlemail.comwrote in message
news:11**********************@p79g2000cwp.googlegr oups.com...

Hi,

I have found many tutorials showing how to access data in an Excel
spreadsheet using a COM object in .net. But, as far as I can tell, this
requires Excel to be installed.
Is there anyway I can access the Excel file without the user needing
Excel?

Thanks,
Chris Riddle