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An ExcelTemplate template is an Excel file that contains ExcelWriter data markers. A datamarker is a cell value beginning with %%= that specifies a database colum, variable, or array to insert into the spreadsheet column. Data markers are added to a worksheet in Excel and then bound to data sources in code. ExcelWriter populates the data markers with values from the data sources when the code is executed.

Datamarker syntax

The basic syntax for a datamarker is %%=DataSourceName.ColumnName, where DataSourceName is the name of the data source and ColumnName is the name of the column of data in the data source. You need to follow these rules when naming data markers:

• Names MUST begin with a letter (A-Z, a-z)
• Spaces and Unicode characters are NOT allowed unless the names are inside brackets (%%=[Data Source Name].ColumnName, %%=DataSourceName.[Column$Name])
  • The following is a list of characters allowed in data marker names without brackets: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890_
• Names must match the names in the data source exactly.
  • If a column in a database is 'Street Address', the ColumnName must be [Street Address] to account for the space. Similarly, if a data source name is "DataSource1", the data marker name must be DataSource1 or [DataSource1].

Adding data markers to the the template

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