Export HTML table to excel using PHP

[Dharmender]

I have generated HTML table from Mysql data using PHP. I want to export this table to Excel. I have 'googled' a lot but not satisfied with it.

[Christian F.]

Easiest option is to save it as a CSV file, and then import it into Excel.

[Dharmender]

Easiest option is to save it as a CSV file, and then import it into Excel.

1. How can we save it as csv.

2. Why not directly into .xls format

[Christian F.]

1. fputcsv ()
   
2. Because this is a proprietary binary format. Only Microsoft knows for sure how it's defined, and it changes for every single Excel version released.
   This causes many problems, one of them being that any other implementation of this (which is not directly supported by MS) is actually of dubious legal nature depending upon which country you're in.

[Barand]

You can open an html file in Excel. Just save the page you've already created.

[Muddy_Funster]

you can pretend a page is an exel file by manipulating the header. I don't know how it will translate an html table but using

header("Content-type: application/x-msdownload");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=yourFileName.xls");
header("Pragma: no-cache");
header("Expires: 0");

will force the browser to treat the page as an exel file download.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Muddy_Funster