Table of Contents

Introduction

This is Part 3 of the three-part tutorial series Financial Report scenario. It is recommended that you complete Part 1 - Using Modifiers and Ordinal Syntax and Part 2 - Using Styles and Formatting before starting this section.

This tutorial also assumes a basic understanding of how to open and manipulate Excel files with ExcelApplication.

Getting Started

This section covers using ExcelApplication to join two Worksheets into one Workbook. These two worksheets were created in Part 1 and Part 2 of this tutorial.

In the downloadable ExcelWriter_Basic_Tutorials.zip, there are completed template files located in CompleteFinancialReport/templates.

Adding an ExcelWriter Reference in Visual Studio

In the sample code, the reference to SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll has already been added to the CompleteFinancialReport project.

Create a .NET project and add a reference to the ExcelWriter library.

Open Visual Studio and create a .NET project.
- The sample code uses a web application.
Add a reference to SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll
- SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter.dll is located under Program Files > SoftArtisans > OfficeWriter > dotnet > bin

Writing the Code

Merging template together with CopySheet

1. Include the SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter namespace in the code behind

using SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter;

2. Globally declare the ExcelTemplate, ExcelApplication, and Workbook objects.

ExcelApplication XLA;
ExcelTemplate XLT;
Workbook MERGEDWB;

3. Define a method that will open the two template files and merge them together with CopySheet. In this case, the method is called MergeTemplates().

protected void MergeTemplates()
{

}

4. In MergeTemplates(), instantiate the ExcelApplication object.

XLA = new ExcelApplication();

5. Open the workbook that the worksheets will be copied into. For this example, the second template will be copied into the first template workbook.

MERGEDWB = XLA.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//Part1_Financial_Template.xlsx"));

6. Open the second workbook that will be merged into the first.

Workbook wbOther = XLA.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//Part2_Financial_Template.xlsx"));

7. Copy the worksheet from the second template into the first workbook. Worksheet.Name can be used to pass along the original name of the worksheet ("Percent by Quarter"). The worksheet should be copied to the end of the current worksheet collection (index 1).

MERGEDWB.Worksheets.CopySheet(wbOther[0], 1, wbOther[0].Name);

Binding Data to the Merged Template

1. Create a method to handle binding and processing the data import for the combined template. For this example, the method is called BindDataToMergedTemplate().

protected void BindDataToMergedTemplate()
{

}

2. Instantiate ExcelTemplate and open the template file with ExcelTemplate.Open(ExcelApplication, Workbook) to open directly from the pre-existing ExcelApplication instance.

XLT = new ExcelTemplate();
XLT.Open(XLA, MERGEDWB);

3. Use the code from Part 1 and Part 2 to bind data to the template. Note that both templates used the same data set, so the calls to bind the data only need to be made once.

If there are duplicate data markers in a workbook, ExcelWriter will import the matching data to all the data markers, across all the worksheets in the workbook.

//Create data binding properties for ExcelTemplate
DataBindingProperties bindingProps = XLT.CreateDataBindingProperties();

//Create the array of header values. This example only binds a single item
string[] headerValues = { "2011" };

//Create the array of header names.
string[] headerNames = { "FiscalYear" };

//Get the datatables to be bound into the template.
//This example uses CSV data, but the data can come from
//anywhere
DataTable dtAssets = GetCSVData("//data//Assets.csv");
DataTable dtLosses = GetCSVData("//data//Losses.csv");
DataTable dtOther = GetCSVData("//data//Other.csv");

//Bind the header row data
XLT.BindRowData(headerValues, headerNames, "Header", bindingProps);

//Bind the datatables
XLT.BindData(dtAssets, "Assets", bindingProps);
XLT.BindData(dtLosses, "Losses", bindingProps);
XLT.BindData(dtOther, "Other", bindingProps);

//Process to import the data to the file
XLT.Process();

XLT.Save(Page.Response, "Part3_Output.xlsx", false);

Final Code

using SoftArtisans.OfficeWriter.ExcelWriter;
using GenericParsing; //See Part 1 for more information about the CSV parser
...
//Declare globals
 ExcelApplication XLA;
 ExcelTemplate XLT;
 Workbook MERGEDWB;

//Merges the reports and binds data to the templates
protected void RunReport()
{
          //Join the two reports using CopySheet
          MergeTemplates();

          //bind the data for the newly modified file
          BindDataToMergedTemplate();

}


protected void JoinReports()
{
	//Instantiate ExcelApplication
	XLA = new ExcelApplication();

	//Open the first template
	MERGEDWB = XLA.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//Part1_Financial_Template.xlsx"));

	//Open the second template
	Workbook wbOther = XLA.Open(Page.MapPath("//templates//Part2_Financial_Template.xlsx"));

	//Call CopySheet
        MERGEDWB.Worksheets.CopySheet(wbOther[0], 1, wbOther[0].Name);

}

protected void BindTemplateData()
{
	XLT = new ExcelTemplate();

	//Open the template file
	XLT.Open(XLA, MERGEDWB);

	//Create data binding properties for ExcelTemplate
	DataBindingProperties bindingProps = XLT.CreateDataBindingProperties(); 

	//Get the datatables to be bound into the template.
	//This example uses CSV data, but the data can come from
	//anywhere
	DataTable dtAssets = GetCSVData("//data//Assets.csv");
	DataTable dtLosses = GetCSVData("//data//Losses.csv");
	DataTable dtOther = GetCSVData("//data//Other.csv");

	//Bind the datatables
	XLT.BindData(dtAssets, "Assets", bindingProps);
	XLT.BindData(dtLosses, "Losses", bindingProps);
	XLT.BindData(dtOther, "Other", bindingProps);

	/*This section only applies to the first template. It will be ignored by the 
	second template, since there are no markers to bind to.*/

	//Create the array of header values. This example only binds a single item
	string[] headerValues = { "2011" };

	//Create the array of header names.
	string[] headerNames = { "FiscalYear" };

	//Bind the header row data
	XLT.BindRowData(headerValues, headerNames, "Header", bindingProps);

	//end

	//Process to import the data to the file
	XLT.Process();

        XLT.Save(Page.Response, "Part3_Output.xlsx", false);
}

Downloads

You can download the code for the Financial Report here.

ExcelWriter_Basic_Tutorials.zip